Sire:
To discover whether it is expedient to establish municipalities in those cantons of France where they do not exist, whether it is necessary to improve or change those already in existence, and how to constitute those it is deemed necessary to create does not involve going back to the origin of municipal administrations, giving an historical account of the vicissitudes they have undergone, or even analyzing in great detail the diverse forms they exhibit today. In deciding what must be done in serious matters, it has been much too frequent a practice to revert to the examination and example of what our ancestors did in times of ignorance and barbarism. This method serves only to lead justice astray in the multiplicity of facts presented as precedents; and it tends to make princes disgusted with their most important functions, by persuading them that it is necessary to be prodigiously learned in order to discharge these functions with success and glory. However, it is really only necessary to understand thoroughly and to weigh carefully the rights and interests of men. These rights and interests are not very numerous, so that the science which comprises them, based upon the principles of justice that each of us bears in our heart, and on the intimate conviction of our own sensations has a very great degree of certainty and yet is not at all extensive. It does not require the effort of long study, nor is it beyond the capabilities of any man of good will. . . .
This nation is numerous. That it obey is not everything. It is necessary to make sure that it can be commanded effectively. In order to succeed in this, it would first seem necessary to know, in fairly great detail, the nation's situation, its needs, its capabilities. This knowledge would doubtless be more useful than historical accounts of past positions. . . .
The cause of the evil, Sire, stems from the fact that your nation has no constitution. It is a society composed of different orders badly united, and of a people among whose members there are but very few social ties. In consequence, each individual is occupied only with his own particular, exclusive interest; and almost no one bothers to fulfill his duties or to know his relationship to others. As a result, there is a perpetual war of claims and counterclaims which reason and mutual understanding have never regulated, in which Your Majesty is obliged to decide everything personally or through your agents. Everyone insists on your special orders to contribute to the public good, to respect the goods of others, sometimes even to make use of his own goods. You are forced to decree on everything, in most cases by particular acts of will, whereas you could govern like God by general laws if the various parts composing your realm had a regular organization and clearly established relationship.
Your realm is made up of provinces. These provinces are composed of cantons or districts which (depending on the province) are called bailliages, e'lections, vigueries, or some other such name. These districts are made up of a certain number of towns and villages, which are in turn inhabited by families. To them belong the lands which yield products, provide for the livelihood of the inhabitants, and furnish the revenues from which salaries are paid to those without land and taxes are levied to meet public expenditures. The families, finally, are composed of individuals, who have many duties to fulfill towards one another and towards society, duties justified in terms of the benefits they have received, and which they continue to receive daily.
But individuals are educated poorly regarding their duties within the family and not at all regarding those which link them to the state.
Families themselves scarcely know that they depend on this state, of which they form a part: they have no idea of the nature of their relationship to it. They consider the levying of the taxes required for the maintenance of public order as nothing but the law of the strongest; and they see no other reason to obey than their powerlessness to resist. As a result, everyone seeks to cheat the authorities and to pass social obligations on to his neighbors. Incomes are concealed and can only be discovered very imperfectly by a kind of inquisition which would lead one to say that Your Majesty is at war with your people. And in this type of war which, were it only apparent, would always be destructive and deadly, no one has an interest in taking the government's part, and anyone who did so would be regarded with hostility. There is no public spirit because there is no known and visible common interest. The villages and towns, whose members are thus disunited, have no more links between them in the districts to which they belong. They are unable to get together on any of the public works that might be necessary for them. The same applies to the various divisions of the provinces, and to the provinces themselves in relation to the realm as a whole.
Some of these provinces do, however, have a kind of constitution, assemblies, a sort of public will; they are called pays d'Etats. But since these Estates are composed of orders with very diverse claims, and with interests that are very separate one from another and from that of the nation, they are still far from producing all the good to be desired for the provinces in which they form part of the administration.
These local half-benefits are perhaps an evil; provinces enjoying them are less sensitive to the necessity for reform. But Your Majesty can bring them to recognize that necessity by giving the other provinces, which have no constitution at all, a constitution better organized than that which at present makes the pays d'Etats so full of pride. It is by means of example, Sire, that they can be brought to desire that your power authorize them to change what is defective in their present form.
In order to dissipate this spirit of disunity, which vastly increases the work of your servants and of Your Majesty, and which necessarily and prodigiously diminishes your power; in order to substitute instead a spirit of order and union which would mobilize the forces and means of your nation for the common good, gathering them together in your hand and making them easy to direct, it would be necessary to conceive of a plan that would link individuals to their families, families to the village or town to which they belong, towns and villages to the district of which they form part, districts to their province, and provinces finally to the state. This plan would involve instruction that would be compelling, a common interest, deliberating about it and acting according to it. . . .
The Means of Preparing Individuals and Families to Enter Effectively into a Well-Constituted Society
The first and perhaps the most important of all the institutions which I would believe necessary, Sire, that which would seem to me the most fitting to immortalize Your Majesty's reign and which would have the greatest influence on the kingdom as a whole, would be the formation of a council on national instruction responsible for the direction of the academies, universities, and secondary and elementary schools.
The first bond of nations is custom; the first foundation of custom is the instruction received from childhood regarding all the duties of man in society. It is astonishing that this science is so little advanced. There are methods and institutions for training grammarians, mathematicians, doctors, painters. There are none for training citizens. There would be, if national instruction were directed by one of Your Majesty's councils, in the public interest and according to uniform principles.
There would be no need for this council to be very large, because it would be necessary for it to be united in spirit. In accordance with this spirit, it would commission textbooks systematically planned and written in such a way that one would lead to another, and that the study of the duties of the citizen, as member of a family and of the state, would be the basis for all other studies, which would be organized in relation to their usefulness to society.
This council would supervise the entire organization of education and it could render literary bodies useful for that purpose. The present efforts of these bodies tend only to create savants, poets, men of wit and taste; those unable to aspire to this goal are neglected and count for nothing. A new system of education, which can only be established by Your Majesty's entire authority, seconded by a well-chosen council, would lead to the formation, among all classes of society, of virtuous and useful men, just souls, pure hearts, and zealous citizens. Those among them who then wished to devote themselves particularly to sciences and letters, and were capable of doing so, would be diverted from frivolous matters by the importance of the first principles which they had received, and would approach their work in a more vigorous and determined spirit. Taste itself would improve, as would the national tone: it would become more serious and more elevated, but, above all, more concerned with virtuous things. This would be the fruit of the uniformity of patriotic attitudes that the council on instruction would disseminate in all the teaching given to youth.
There is at present only one type of instruction that has any uniformity: religious instruction. Even here, this uniformity is not complete. Textbooks vary from one diocese to another; the Paris catechism is not the same as the Montpellier catechism, and neither is identical to that of Besancon. This diversity of textbooks is unavoidable in an educational system that has several independent heads. The instruction organized by your council on instruction would not have that drawback. It would be all the more necessary in that religious instruction is limited to heavenly things. The proof that this instruction is not sufficient for the morality to be observed between citizens, and especially between different groups of citizens, lies in the multitude of issues arising every day in which Your Majesty sees one part of your subjects seeking to vex another by exclusive privileges; with the result that your Council is forced to quash these requests and proscribe as unjust the pretexts they invoke.
Your kingdom, Sire, is of this world. It is over the earthly conduct of your subjects, towards one another and towards the state, that Your Majesty is obliged to watch for the sake of your conscience and the welfare of your crown. I do not wish to place any obstacle in the way of that instruction which has a higher object, and which already has its rules and ministers completely established. Quite the contrary. Nevertheless, I do not believe I can propose anything more advantageous for your people, more conducive to the maintenance of peace and good order and to the encouragement of all useful works, more fitting to make your authority cherished and your person daily more dear to the hearts of your subjects, than to provide them all with an education which clearly shows them their obligations towards society and towards your power which protects it, the duties which these obligations impose upon them, and the interest they have in fulfilling these duties for the public good, as for their own. This moral and social instruction demands textbooks written expressly for the purpose, in open competition and with great care, and a schoolmaster in each parish who will teach them to the children, together with reading, writing, arithmetic, measurement, and the principles of mechanics.
More learned instruction, progressively embracing the knowledge necessary for the citizens whose position requires more extensive enlightenment, would be taught in the secondary schools. But it would follow the same principles, more fully developed according to the functions which the rank of the students fits them to fill in society.
If Your Majesty approves this plan, Sire, I shall submit for your consideration a special memorandum containing the relevant details. But I dare to assert that ten years from now, your nation would be unrecognizable; and that, by virtue of its intelligence, its good customs, its enlightened zeal for your service and for that of the country, it would be infinitely superior to all other peoples past and present. Children who are now ten years old would then find themselves men of twenty, prepared for the state, attached to the country, submissive to authority not from fear, but by reason supportive of their fellow citizens, accustomed to knowing and respecting the justice which is the first foundation of societies.
Such men will act well within their families, and will doubtless raise families that will be easy to govern in the villages to which they belong.
Because of successive losses that he had experienced, the King had emptied the Parc-Aux-Cerfs [the location for the harem] and yielded himself entirely to grief [over the loss of his wife and children from 1765 to 1768]. Advancing age and the ability of a great prince to satisfy all his passions had dulled his attraction towards women. But this need, though diminished, continued; and the courtiers judged it necessary to distract His Majesty from the long and grievous spectacle which the illness of the Queen had created. The doctors assured the King that it was dangerous to give up so abruptly a pleasure necessary for his existence. The monarch believed his doctors since the decline of the state and the loss of his companion, (such as he called the Queen in his letter to the archbishop to tell him of her death) had left him despondent.
He told the Sieur le Bel to take care of this responsibility. This very zealous servant often undertook research to better serve His Majesty. It was on one of these hunting trips that le Bel spoke to the Count du Barry of his fatigue from these efforts. The latter, who had a sure sense in such matters and who was also known by le Bel as a man who could be useful, had no trouble in coming to his assistance. Le Bel told him of his despair of having found nothing in all these trips which could be desirable for his master. . . . -- "No," the impudent Count said to him, "I’ve got your business for you. You know I don’t lack taste. Trust me: you come to dinner at my house and tell me that I’m a cad if I don’t give you the most beautiful woman, the most fresh, the most seductive; a true morsel for a king." The King’s purveyor, enchanted with a proposition so consoling, embraced him and promised to go to find a convenient time. Du Barry had nothing more pressing than to return to his house and getting Mademoiselle l’Ange [the Angel] all dressed up. (This nickname, "the angel" was used by Mademoiselle Vaubernier following the practice of courtesans who also took a nom de guerre when they entered and displayed themselves before the world.) Du Barry taught her the role she had to play, giving her the hope that he regarded as chimerical but which was, however, realized. He gave her the picture of a brilliant destiny: he declared to her that it wasn’t a question of simply appearing at Versailles and satisfying incognito the desires of the King; he wished to make her mistress in title and to have her replace Madame du Pompadour. For this, it was necessary that she pretend to le Bel that she was his sister-in-law, married to his fat brother. She had to sustain well this persona, while deploying all the coquetterie and gracefulness that she had at her disposal. In such a case, all would go well.
Mademoiselle L’Ange, for a joke, had already posed several times with the title Countess du Barry. It’s a current usage among kept girls to esteem themselves with the titles of their lovers. It was scarcely difficult to take on this persona with Sieur le Bel, who delighted by the face of this young person, who by her playfulness, by her lascivious look and various remarks, soon understood how to rejuvenate the old man. Through his experience he conceived what a happy effect a woman with such resources would have on his master. The dinner was exceptionally delightful, and the valet would have been glad to try himself so that he could vouch for his discovery. The Sieur du Barry profited from the enthusiasm of this lecher to make him understand that his sister-in-law could not be presented to the King like a common prostitute. And that she could not be simply disposed of without difficulty. This was a woman of quality who would doubtless be very honored with the bed of a prince or of such a desirable great king. However, she had the ambition to conquer his heart, as she already felt a terrific attachment for his sacred person -- an attachment which could only grow with greater intimacy. The valet was not too love struck to not see immediately this truth and thus to lend himself to all the arrangements which would appear necessary. It was decided from this moment that the so-called Countess would be a sacred morsel for the King. And that the Sieur le Bel would report to the monarch what he had seen. He would represent to His Majesty the desire of the woman in question to please him and the entire devotion of her husband to the will of the sovereign. Further, he would tell of the happiness that this faithful couple aspired to add to his pleasures. However, this beauty flattered herself to be able to be able to prove her love over a long time. And she would have the right to expect the same from her august lover and the general exclusion of all competitors. Evil courtiers have claimed that, according to the conversation, the valet was permitted to take possession of this future mistress in the name of the King. Others avow that du Barry induced the ambassador by promising a reward were he successful in presenting the woman. Whatever it be, as he was very smitten himself and he placed in his story to the King so much heat and energy that he strongly excited the love of the prince. But to inflame him more and before His Majesty had actually had an encounter, he proposed to have him see the object without the woman knowing of it, so that the King would be in a position to judge himself.
The valet had a small house arranged where he invited the Countess to dine. It appears that the latter was warned of the secret observer who was to be there. The company fitted the scene, and the meal so voluptuous that the monarch couldn’t hold back. On that very night, he had Mademoiselle L’Ange come to him and he found in her possession more secret charms than exterior ones. In effect, those who preceded the King in this sexual pleasure unanimously attest that she had all that was necessary to reanimate the dullest existence. And she was effective with this jaded lover, overcoming the general disgust that he found with women who, up to then even in the middle of his pleasures were restrained by respect and adoration. Thus he really didn’t know the diverse resources that he could find in a new world of voluptuousness which offered him inexhaustible delights. In such a situation, what discovery, what treasure!
Without doubt there had been in the bed of the prince, women as instructed as Mademoiselle L’Ange, but they did not have a character so free, so true, so adventurous that they could flaunt their savoir-faire and dare to use it. On the contrary, this ingenue, candid and focused, was also led by a man experienced in the most refined libertinage. He anticipated that this prodigious sensation would produce a striking contrast between the lessons that he had given his student and the cold and inhibited caresses of the initial mistresses of the King. All he had to do was await the effect of this indoctrinated nymph; the success of the first triumph would marvelously encourage her to deploy the total extent of her art. If men accustomed to the techniques of prostitutes with their lively and energetic style still feel with them sensations of pleasure, what an impression must these powerful methods produce on a voluptuous person who had never experienced them! Such was the case of the monarch, according to the courtesans who knew the most of his private life and secret amusements.
This daughter of Venus was so able that the King could no longer do without her, and he had to take her along through the entire trip to Compiègne. She was totally incognito, because His Majesty being still in official mourning over the Queen, did not find it convenient to publicize his pleasures. Besides the King was very committed to appearances, in that on the exterior his behavior would comport to the maintenance of good morals. But these little inconveniences only aroused his passion and gave it more force to the point that Sieur le Bel, seeing the decided taste that his master took for Mademoiselle l’Ange and that things were going much farther than he would have believed, somewhat repented having become involved in the Count’s maneuver, especially as he understood it. He believed it was his duty, before this new favorite could be set up, to throw himself at the knees of the King and to declare to him how he had discovered this beauty: that he had been surprised; that she was no woman of quality; and that she wasn’t even married. "So what!" exclaimed the King, following the usual tradition among the courtiers. "So what! Let someone marry her promptly, so that one could keep me from having an indiscretion." Someone added that his counsel [the valet] wanted to go into more details, but that a severe look from the King obliged him to be silent. Struck with grief to have produced such a creature and envisioning the results that such a violent passion could create in a prince who approached old age, this zealous servant developed a grief that led him to the grave. Others claimed that in order to prevent indiscreet revelations that he could make, his enemies had him poisoned.
Whatever the case may be, the words of the King greatly heated up the hopes of the Count du Barry, called the Great du Barry to distinguish him from his brothers. He had one sibling, that we will name the Fat du Barry, a drunkard, a pig, wallowing night and day in the dirtiest debauchery. It was decided that he would be the one who would marry Mademoiselle l’Ange. He was warned in advance, and he had no trouble accepting, as he easily understood that this willingness on his part would allow him to lead more freely the kind of life which agreed with him and would procure him all the money that he would need. This hope would have been able to corrupt a less vile soul. He submitted to the ceremony, and the marriage was made in the parish Saint-Laurent September 1, 1768. The notary Pot of Auteil drew up the contract. He did not yet know the high destiny of the beauty whose civil alliance he constructed. But struck by her charms and her graces, he wished to enjoy the customary privilege among his colleagues in such a situation: he gallantly advanced to embrace the young person who, not expecting this, resisted as her role of maiden required. Her future brother-in-law encouraged her to permit this public officer to brush her cheeks, and then said to him, "Remember this favor well, sir, because it is the last that you will receive from Madame."
The august lover was enchanted to learn that the ceremony was complete. He appeared to yield himself with more confidence to the new Countess; and each day his passion, far from diminishing through pleasure, so augmented that the du Barry brothers raised their expectations to the most vast ambition. But they had to carefully direct the favorite, the new Madame du Barry. And this plan demanded a lot of care and circumspection.
Madame du Barry had no inclination for this, especially a sense of intrigue that her position demanded. One sees by the course of her adventures up to the moment of her elevation, that she was lacking the ploys that are found commonly among courtesans and which serve them well in their attack on men. As she was neither self-interested nor ambitious, she was not caught up in the powerful webs of these two passions, so energetic in most spirits. Rather the new Countess carried in the role that she undertook a quality that was perhaps better: it is a sort of good sense to adopt the opinions that one gave her to make the situation worthwhile and to profit from it. In a word, she had a marvelous docility to the counsels of her brother-in-law whose success in the project that he had developed assured more than ever the confidence of his sister-in-law. The only point of difficulty was then concealing from the eyes of the courtiers the secret wire managing the favorite. Too much assiduousness on his part might have made the monarch suspicious of her and would lay her open to the malignity of the courtiers, yet the unexpected expulsion of this counselor would leave the favorite unprotected and in the position of making a lot of foolish mistakes.
The Count du Barry imagined then a plan of conduct that one can regard as a political chef d’oeuvre. This was to appear to absolutely abandon his sister-in-law to her brilliant destiny and to not show himself at court. At the same time he placed near her Mademoiselle du Barry, his sister, that he judged totally proper for the job he wanted her to do. The latter was too ugly to awaken any jealousy in the Countess, nor would she involve herself in the amorous intrigues which would turn her away from her principal object. She had besides some spirit; it was a certain virtuosity which evidenced itself in literary talent and she had even had a letter published in the Mercure. She was very ingratiating and did not hesitate to master the favorite, which was essential. There was thus established a continual circulation from brother to sister, from the latter to the Countess, from the Countess back to Mademoiselle du Barry, and then from sister to brother. Young emissaries, trained by the Count, were continually on the road from Versailles and carried his orders, verbal or written, according to circumstances. The messengers were multiplied as needed; and by that, the favorite was led from minute to minute. Sometimes she made little trips to Paris where not having a house, she lodged at that of her brother-in-law and received general instructions which she applied in particular circumstances.
[The story continues and leads Madame du Barry to increasing heights. Here she is credited with felling the ministry of Choiseul and replacing it with the anti-Parlement Triumvirate that would exile the magistrates in 1770.]
It was especially at Fontainebleau that the Countess du Barry triumphed in all her glory and humiliated the Duke of Choiseul. The regiment of the King had come to camp near this city to be reviewed by His Majesty. This review required the minister of war. Madame du Barry assisted, escorted by the Duchess of Valentinois and the Marquise of Montmorency. The Court du Châtelet, a lieutenant colonel, held a supper party in his tent with these women in attendance. Madame du Barry sat beside His Majesty and replaced the Dauphine who was supposed to be there but did not arrive. This was the first spectacular schism between her and the favorite. The Duke of Choiseul, who was beside himself with rage, claimed to be indisposed to avoid the review and the meal. [Yet] the King; even in the most minor things showed the interest that he took in all that concerned his charming mistress. . . .
All these little individual favors were only a prelude to the important acheivement that Madame du Barry was going to develop in the revolution [a change in the ministry] which was going to occur, and to which the Duke of Aiguillon and the Chancellor worked together, to serve separately their respective ambitions. Both used the Countess as the person most able to get the King to agree to the plan. They made her understand that it was absolutely necessary that she second their views for her own interest; and that she would not be secure at all as long as Choiseul remained in place. Further, he could not be sacked until he became suspect to the King because of his connections to the Parlement. Finally, to blacken him better, it was necessary to blacken this company and to represent it to the monarch as an ambitious body, always ready to trash and invade his authority and to usurp the rights of the throne. His expulsion would produce first the attack on the Duke and then, not less essential, of facilitating taxes, and consequently the general appreciation of her by her august lover. So many advantages, presented under a point of view so sensitive and seductive, strongly alienated the favorite from the magistracy. She soon made pass into the heart of the monarch the hate that she had conceived for the Parlement and to which he was already strongly disposed. At this point, this feeble prince, who had no free will, finally took the decision to relax the new law that emerged as the famous edict of December 1770, registered by a lit de justice the third of that month. [This effectively quashed the political powers of all parlements.]
But the Chancellor and the Duke of Aiguillon knew well the pusillanimous character of the monarch and did not at all rely on his apparent firmness. They profited from it only by making the important coups that they contemplated, in order to go so far that it was impossible to withdraw. Madame du Barry served them marvellously in that. As the King supped almost every evening with her, they warned her what she had to say to him. When her lover -- his mind muddled from the exquisite wines she poured him, and his heart burning from love as he rested in her arms -- begged for her ultimate favors and could do nothing to refuse her, she extorted the fatal signatures and nothing went to the council for discussion. At least the other ministers complained loudly to have no knowledge of these violent acts, exerted against the Parlement of Paris. Thus as well was finally expedited the lettre de cachet [direct arrest by monarchical order] of the Duke of Choiseul. This was a letter signed several times in moments of drunken love-making, and the king repented [too late] the next day.
[And the memoir heads toward its end with the following passages.]
It was time that so many depredations be stopped; France tended toward inevitable ruin if the death of Louis XV had not changed the face of the kingdom. What is most unusual about the event is that it issued from those who had the most reason to save him.
His Majesty was the most despondent in some time. The sudden death of the Marquis of Chauvelin, one of his favorites, enjoying a flourishing health, a friend in all the King’s pleasure parties, had died right before his eyes. He ceaselessly thought about it. The death of the Marshal of Armentières, very similar to Chauvelin and the same age as the King, had augmented the melancholy. He was also racked by the remorse created in his heart by the Bishop of Senes, from a sermon that was extremely strong and pathetic. The committee of the favorite decided that it was necessary to redouble their efforts to draw the King from this condition, even by lively orgies that could give a shake to his system. Consequently, it was decided to propose a voyage to the Trianon [a small palace on the Versailles grounds], where they would be more at ease inspired by the liberty of the place. One noticed that the King had admiringly lusted over a little daughter of a carpenter. They sent for the child, cleaned her up, perfumed her, introduced her to the bed of the august lecher. This morsel would have been hard from him to digest if they hadn’t administered some strong stimulants. For the moment this gave him sweet assistance, and procured more pleasure than a libertine in his sixties might ordinarily experience. This child, unfortunately was already sick, and had a lot of trouble doing what one demanded, and only went through with it because of threats and in the hope of receiving a fortune. No one knew that she had the smallpox germ which soon developed in her in the cruelest manner, and she promptly died. The venom was communicated to the King and on the next day His Majesty felt sick without foreseeing its cause. Consequently, they advised Madame du Barry to keep him there and to remain in charge of him. But the sieur La Martinière, his first surgeon, insisted that he be immediately transported to Versailles. The next day everyone knew that the King had smallpox. It was easy to see he would not recover.
To know whether it is worthwhile creating municipalities in those cantons of France where they do not exist, whether those already in existence need to be improved or changed, and how to create them if deemed necessary, it is not necessary to look at the origin of municipal administrations, recount the historical vicissitudes they have undergone, or even enter into great detail on their various forms today. It has become much too common a practice when making serious decisions, to resort to examining past examples of what our ancestors did during their times of ignorance and barbarism. This methodology only serves to mislead justice by presenting a multiplicity of seemingly authoritative facts. It also has a tendency to result in the prince's disgust with his most important functions, because he is convinced that he needs to be prodigiously knowledgeable if he wants to be able to fruitfully and gloriously discharge his duties. However, it is really only a matter of thoroughly understanding and carefully weighing the rights and interests of men. Because in fact these rights are not very numerous, the science of their study is very narrow in scope and it does not require long hours to have become very knowledgeable. Nor is it beyond the capabilities of any able man. To understand these rights, one need merely apply the principles of justice that each of us bears in our heart, and the intimate conviction of our own feelings. . . .
This nation is large. Its obedience is not enough in itself . . . one must also be sure that it can be effectively led. In order to do so, it seems that it is necessary to know, in fairly great detail, the nation's situation, its needs, and its capabilities. This information would no doubt be more useful than any historical overview. . . .
Sire, the root of the problem is that your nation has no constitution. It is a society composed of diverse, poorly united orders, and of a people with very few social ties between them. Consequently, each individual is occupied only with his own individual interests, and almost no one can be bothered to fulfill his duties or to understand his relationship to others. The result is this continuous war of claims and ventures that reason and mutual understanding can never settle, obligating Your Majesty to decide everything, either personally or through your agents. Everyone awaits your specific orders before contributing to the public good, before respecting others' property, or sometimes even before making use of his own. You are forced to decree on everything, in most cases by specific acts, whereas if the integral parts of your kingdom had a regular organization and identified relationships, you would be able govern by issuing general laws, as God does.
Your kingdom is made up of provinces. These provinces are composed of cantons or districts (arrondissements) which, depending on the province, are called bailliages, élections, vigueries or some other name. These districts are formed by a certain number of towns and villages. These towns and villages are inhabited by families that own these lands that yield produce, provide for the livelihood of the inhabitants, furnish the revenues from which salaries are paid to those without land, and pay the taxes reserved for public expenditures. Finally, these families are made up of individuals who have many duties to fulfill towards one another and towards society . . . duties based on the benefits they have received and which they continue to receive daily.
But these individuals are rather poorly educated regarding their duties within the family, and not educated at all regarding those duties which connect them to the State.
Families themselves are barely aware that they depend on this State to which they belong . . . they have no idea of the nature of their relationship to it. They believe that when the authorities levy the taxes required to maintain public order, it is nothing more than the law of the strongest, and the only reason for them to obey is that they are powerless to resist. As a result, everyone seeks to cheat the authorities and to pass his welfare costs on to his neighbors. Income is hidden and can only be partially uncovered by means of a kind of inquisition that makes it appear that Your Majesty is at war with his people. And although it only seems like a war, it is still detrimental, with dire consequences, and with the result being that no one has an interest in supporting the government. And anyone who sides with the government is viewed with hostility. There is no public spirit because there is no visible or identifiable common interest, nor do these divided members of villages and towns have any greater ties to the districts where they live. They disagree on all of the public works that might be necessary.
The same divisions exist between the provinces themselves, and between the provinces and the realm as a whole.
However, some of these provinces do have a constitution of a sort, with assemblies and a kind of public will, known as the Pays d'Etats. But since these Estates are composed of orders which have very diverse claims and which have very different interests between themselves and between them and the nation, these Estates are still far from able to bring about all the improvements needed by the provinces in the administrative areas where they are located.
These local 'half-estates' are perhaps harmful in that the provinces that have them are less aware of the need to implement reform. But Your Majesty can lead them to recognize what is needed by giving those provinces without constitutions an even more organized constitution than those which currently take pride in their Pays d'Etats. Sire, by setting an example by means of your power and authorization you can entice them to want to change the defects of their present system.
This divisive mindset vastly increases the work of your servants and of Your Majesty, and necessarily and prodigiously diminishes your power. To dispel this attitude, it must be replaced with a spirit of order and union that would mobilize your nation's forces and means for the common good, placing them together under your direct control and making them easy to lead. A plan would be required that would tie individuals to their families, families to their village or town, towns and villages to their district, districts to their province, and finally provinces to the state. This plan would tie by the binds of mandatory education, by obvious common interests, by making everyone aware of those interests, and by discussing and complying with the plan. . . .
On How to Prepare Individuals and Families to Enter Effectively into a Well-Constituted Society
Sire, the first and perhaps most important of all the institutions which I believe necessary, which would seem to me the most fitting to immortalize Your Majesty's reign, and which would have the greatest influence on the kingdom as a whole, would be the creation of a National Education Council. This council would be responsible for academies, universities, secondary schools, and elementary schools.
Mores are a nations most important bond, and they are primarily based on the education received, starting in childhood, which deals with all of a man's obligations to society. It is astonishing that this knowledge is so rudimentary. There are methods and institutions for training grammarians, surveyors, doctors, and painters, but there are none for training citizens. This would not be the case if national education was under the direction of one of Your Majesty's councils, if it aimed at serving the public interest, and if it followed your uniform principles.
This council would not need to be very large, because it too would need to be of one mind. Accordingly, standard textbooks would be commissioned in accordance with a master plan, written in such a way that one would lead logically to another. Also, the study of each citizen's duties, as a member of a family and the state, would serve as the basis for all other studies, which in turn would be prioritized according to their usefulness to society.
Literary bodies would serve this council by supervising all educational policy. Currently, these literary bodies tend only to create scholars, poets, and men of wit and taste. Those unable to aspire to these goals are abandoned and amount to nothing. A new system of education, which only Your Majesty's total authority could establish and which would be seconded by a very well-chosen council, would lead to the formation, among all classes of society, of virtuous and useful men, just souls, pure hearts, and zealous citizens. Those among them who could and would devote themselves particularly to the sciences and the fine arts would be diverted from frivolous matters by the importance of the basic principles which they had received, and would approach their work with a more vigorous and steady character. Both individual as well the national taste itself would improve . . . becoming more serious and more elevated but, above all, more concerned with honorable things. This would be the fruit of having uniform patriotic attitudes that the education council would disseminate through all the teaching given to the young.
At present there is but one type of instruction that has any uniformity: religious instruction. And even this is not completely uniform. Textbooks vary from one diocese to another; the Paris catechism is not the same as the Montpellier catechism, and neither is identical to that of Besançon. This diversity of textbooks is unavoidable in an educational system that has several independent heads. The education organized by your council would not have that drawback, which would be all the more necessary in that religious instruction is limited to heavenly things. This education is not sufficient for citizens to demonstrate morality to one another, and especially between different groups of citizens. The proof of this lies in the multitude of issues arising every day in which Your Majesty sees one part of your subjects seeking to upset another through the use of exclusive privileges. The result is that your Council is forced to suppress these requests and proscribe the pretexts they invoke as unjust.
Sire, your kingdom is of this world. It is your subjects' conduct, towards one another and towards the state, which Your Majesty is obliged to watch over for the sake of your conscience and the welfare of your crown. I do not wish to place any obstacle in the way of that instruction which has a higher cause, and which already has completely established rules and ministers . . . quite the contrary. However, I do not believe I can propose anything more advantageous for your people, more conducive to the maintenance of peace and good order and to the encouragement of all useful works, more fitting to endear your authority and your person more every day to your subjects, than to provide them all with an education which clearly shows them their obligations towards society and towards your power which protects it, the duties which these obligations impose upon them, and their interest in fulfilling these duties both for the public good as well as their own. This moral and social instruction requires textbooks written expressly for the purpose, in cooperation with others, and with great care, and also requires a schoolmaster in each parish who will teach these texts to the children, along with reading, writing, arithmetic, measurement, and the principles of mechanics.
More learned instruction, progressively incorporating the knowledge necessary for those citizens whose position requires more extensive enlightenment, would be taught in the secondary schools. But always in accordance with the same principles, more fully developed according to the functions that each student's rank requires them to fill in society.
Sire, if Your Majesty approves this plan, I shall submit for your consideration a special memorandum containing the relevant details. But I dare to say that ten years from now your nation will be unrecognizable. That by virtue of its intelligence, its good customs, its enlightened zeal for your service and for that of the country, your nation would be infinitely superior to all other peoples past or present. Children who are now ten years old would then be men of twenty, prepared for the State, attached to their homeland, submissive to authority. This would not be from fear but by reason, they would be supportive of their fellow citizens and accustomed to knowing and respecting the justice that is the basic foundation of any society.
Such men will behave well within their families, and will doubtless raise families that will be easy to govern in their villages.
Sire:
As your reign begins, we must make Your Majesty aware of the real state of the People, for their condition is lost in the brilliant spectacle of the court. It may even be that you have been led to form tragic misconceptions about the condition of the rest of the nation from the joy and affection shown by all those who could approach Your Majesty at your accession [to the throne]. . . . This nation, Sire, has always shown its enthusiasm and affection for its masters by making the greatest effort to maintain the splendor of their throne. Your Majesty must at least be made aware of what these enormous contributions have cost Your unfortunate People. . . .
But there is an important truth, Sire, which it is our duty to bring to your attention. Taxes have been levied with impunity upon your subjects under the pretext that they are required in order to strengthen sovereign authority. A league has formed between the enemies of the courts and those who make the People suffer under the weight of arbitrary taxes. In order to replace the magistracy and its services, this league lent their support to its destruction. The sacrifice of the People to their cupidity was the result. . . .
We would wish, Sire, that there were others besides ourselves who could acquaint you with these distressing truths. Why can Your Majesty not abandon today those fatal maxims of government, or just that policy introduced a century ago by jealous ministers, which has reduced all the Orders of the State to silence with the sole exception of the Magistracy? Why is it not possible for the nation to speak for itself about its most cherished interests? Then, Sire, we would most gladly turn over to others the task of informing you of the excesses committed by this very same ministry which wanted to destroy us! But since we alone still enjoy that ancient right of Frenchmen that allows us to speak to our kings and freely protest against infractions of the law and national rights, we must not show our enemies a generosity which would make us guilty before the entire nation. . . .
France, and perhaps the whole of Europe, is burdened with the weight of taxes. The rivalry of the major powers has led them to spend enormous sums at every opportunity. This has made taxes necessary, and these taxes are redoubled due to the enormous national debt contracted during previous reigns. Your Majesty must remember that if your ancestors were covered with glory, the price for that glory is still being paid for by the present generation. . . . .
Those who benefit from your benevolence and magnificence are always before your eyes, while the wretches robbed of their subsistence by harsh taxes go unseen. It has therefore become necessary to compare these two groups in order to see the shocking, but not exaggerated, condition of the People . . . [M]ay you always be a witness to it, Sire! . . .
There would be a definite advantage for Your Majesty, and an immense one for the People, in simplifying the existing taxes and the laws ensuring their collection. . . .
Allow us, Sire, to make use of the term "tyranny," odious as it is. Allow us to dispense with awkward circumlocutions when we have important truths to bring to your attention. The tyranny against which we are protesting today is exercised, without your knowledge, by emissaries of the administration, people totally unknown to Your Majesty. . . . We place the label of "tyranny" only on that type of administration that tends to deprive your subjects of the right of appeal which is so important for them and does not remove from your protection those who oppress the People. . . .
It seems that such a form of government [tyranny] cannot exist in nations which have laws, customs and enlightenment. In civilized countries, even where the prince enjoys absolute power, the condition of the People should be very different. However absolute the authority may be, justice can be rendered by the deliberation of courts bound by fixed laws. If judges depart from these laws, one can appeal to higher courts, and finally to the sovereign. These appeals are possible because all the rules governing authority are written down, recorded, and introduced into the public records, because every citizen can find a knowledgeable defender, and because the public itself is the censor of the judges. And justice is not only rendered to individuals, but also to corporate bodies, communities, cities and entire provinces. And in order to be able to defend their rights, there should be assemblies and representatives.
Thus, in a civilized country, even one subject to an absolute power, there ought to be no interest, either general or individual, which is not defended. All those entrusted with the exercise of sovereign power should be subject to three types of restraint: the law; appeal to higher authority; and public opinion. . . .
Even in the most well-educated country, even during this century which has the most civilized customs, we are threatened with that form of government in which the sovereign cannot be enlightened, however sincerely he may want to be. France, like the rest of western Europe, was once governed by feudal law, but each kingdom has experienced different revolutions since that form of government was destroyed. . . . In France, the nation has always had a profound awareness of its rights and freedoms. Our tenets have been recognized by our kings on more than one occasion, and our leaders have even basked in the glory of being the sovereigns of a free People. However, the articles of this freedom have never been written down, and the real power, the power of arms, which under the feudal government was in the hands of the great nobles, has been totally concentrated in the hands of the King.
Consequently when there have been great abuses of authority, the representatives of the nation have not been satisfied with merely complaining about bad administration. They have felt obliged to demand the nation's rights. They spoke not only of justice, but of liberty. In response to their efforts, the ministers, always quick to seize upon ways of shielding their administration from examination, have had the cleverness to call into question both the protesting bodies as well as the protests themselves. To appeal to the King against his ministers has been regarded as an attack on his authority. . . . The most powerful kings on earth have been persuaded that they must fear even the tears of a submissive People. . . .
1. An attempt has been made to abolish the real representatives of the nation.
2. The protests of those representatives whom it has been impossible to destroy have been rendered illusory.
3. There is a desire even to make such protests impossible. To achieve this end, two kinds of secrecy have been introduced. One seeks to conceal the operations of the administration from the eyes of the nation and from Your Majesty himself. The other hides the identity of the administrators from the public.
. . . The general assemblies of the nation have not been convoked for one hundred and sixty years, and for a long time before that they were very infrequent. We might even venture to say that they had become almost useless because they were not involved in setting of taxes, one of their most important roles. Several provinces had their own assemblies or provincial Estates [called Pays d'Etats]. Many have been deprived of this important privilege, and in the provinces where the assemblies of Estates still exist, their jurisdiction has been restricted within limits which become narrower every day. It would not be an overstatement to say that in our provinces there exists a sort of continuous warfare between the agents of arbitrary power and the representatives of the People, a war in which tyranny makes new conquests every day.
The provinces which had no provincial Estates were called Pays d'Election. There, courts called "Elections" actually existed and were composed of persons elected by the province itself. They fulfilled some of the functions of the provincial Estates, at least in the matter of apportioning taxes. These courts still exist under the name of "Elections," but the name is all that remains of their original purpose. Their officials are no longer truly elected by the province, and those that are, are made to be almost totally dependent upon the intendants for the exercise of the functions remaining to them. . . .
At least each corporate body and each community of citizens had retained the right to administer its own affairs. We cannot say that this right was part of the original constitution of the realm, because it goes back much further than that. It is a natural right, the right of reason. Nonetheless, even this has been taken away from your subjects. . . .
Step by step we have come from the time when powerful ministers made it a political principle not to allow the national assembly to meet, to a time where the deliberations of the inhabitants of a village are declared void if they have not been authorized by the intendant. If a community has to make an expenditure it must obtain the consent of the intendant's sub-delegate, regardless of how small that expenditure may be. They must also follow the plan he has chosen, employ the workers he favors, and pay them as he decides. And if the community wishes to sue someone, its action must also be authorized by the intendant. The community's case must be pleaded before this first tribunal before being brought into the courts of justice, and if the intendant's opinion goes against the inhabitants, or if their adversary can bring influence to bear upon the intendant, the community is deprived of the ability to defend its rights. . . .
However, it was necessary to give the nation some seeming satisfaction when the Estates were no longer being convened, so the kings announced that the courts of justice would take the place of the Estates and that the magistrates would be the representatives of the People. But after having given the magistrates this title in order to console the nation for the loss of its ancient and veritable representatives, every opportunity was taken to emphasize that the functions of the judges were limited to their own region and to matters of litigation. The same limits were also placed upon the right of representation.
Thus, any possible abuse could be committed in the administration without the King ever learning about it from either the representatives of the People (since in most provinces they no longer exist), from the courts of justice (since they are dismissed as incompetent as soon as they venture to speak of administrative matters), or from individuals who have learned from severe examples that it is a crime to invoke the justice of their sovereign. Yet despite all these obstacles, public outcry, a type of protest which can never be totally extinguished, has always been feared by administrators. Perhaps they also fear that one day a king would, of his own accord, demand an accounting of the administration's secrets. Therefore, they wished to make such an accounting impossible, or at least to ensure that one could only be rendered by the administrators themselves, without any risk of contradiction. This is why they have gone to such lengths to introduce clandestine administration everywhere. . . .
A Declaration of Rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free Convention; which rights do pertain to them, and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.
I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
II. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from the people; that Magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.
III. That government is or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration; and that when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.
IV. That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services; which not being descendible, neither ought the offices of Magistrate, Legislator, or Judge to be hereditary.
V. That the Legislative and Executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the Judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burthens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies by supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.
VI. That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in Assembly, ought to be free; and that all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assented for the public good.
VII. That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights and ought not to be exercised.
VIII. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man hath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty, nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land, or the judgment of his peers.
IX. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
X. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not names, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.
XI. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred.
XII. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
XIII. That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
XIV. That the people have a right to uniform government; and therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of, the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof.
XV. That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
XVI. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.
The desire to ease the burdens placed on the people is too praiseworthy in a sovereign and conforms so much with the wishes of your parlement, that the latter could never conceive of dissuading Your Majesty from such a noble and legitimate goal.
But when projects, with such pleasant prospects, lead to real and increased injustices and even imperil the constitution and the tranquility of the state, it is our faithful duty, without seeking to place obstacles in the way of your beneficence, to establish laws against the imprudent efforts being made to commit Your Majesty to a course of action whose pitfalls and dangers have been concealed from you. . . .
Your parlement understood that the edict substituting a universal, indefinite, and perpetual land tax for the corvée, under the guise of the apparent relief it offers the people, could at first glance have seemed a beneficent act inspired by love of humanity. But at the same time, Sire, your parlement was sure that a more careful examination of the edict would reveal to Your Majesty that it represents a policy burdensome even for those whom you wish to help, and contrary to the sense of justice that motivates you.
Justice, Sire, is the first duty of kings. Without it, the rarest of virtue can produce the most unfortunate of results. It is justice that determines the true value of royal actions, and once it has left its mark on a reign, that monarch will forever be revered.
The first rule of justice is to preserve for every man that which belongs to him. This is the fundamental rule of natural law, as well as of the law of nations and of civil government. It is a rule that consists not only of maintaining property rights, but also of preserving personal rights, in addition to those which derive from the prerogatives of birth and Estate.
From this rule of law and equity it follows that any system designed to create an equality of duties between men, even under the guise of humanity and benevolence, would tend to destroy those distinctions that are necessary to a well-ordered monarchy, and quickly result in disorder. The inevitable result of absolute equality would be the overthrow of civil society, which is maintained in harmony only through the hierarchy of power, authority, precedence, and distinction which keeps each man in his place and protects all states of being from confusion.
This social order is not only essential to the practice of every sound governmentÑit has its origin in divine law. The infinite and immutable wisdom obvious in the universe established an unequal distribution of strength and character, necessarily resulting in inequality in the conditions of men within the social order. Despite the best efforts of the human mind, this 'universal law' is found in every realm, in turn maintaining the order that preserves it. . . .
In the assembly created by these different orders, all the people of your kingdom are your subjects, and all must contribute to the needs of the state. But general order and harmony must be upheld even in this contribution. The personal responsibility of the clergy is to fulfill all the functions relating to education and religion and to aid the unfortunate through alms. The noble devotes his life to the defense of the state and assists the sovereign by providing council. The last class of the nation, which cannot render such distinguished service to the state, fulfills its obligation through taxes, industry and physical labor. . . .
These institutions were not formed by chance, and time cannot change them. To abolish them, the whole French constitution would have to be overturned. . . .
In freeing the last class of citizens from the corvée that it has been subject to until now, the edict transfers the burden to the two orders of the state which have never had to pay it. There will no longer be any difference between your subjects. The noble and the cleric become subject to the corvée or the tax that replaces the corvée, which amounts to the same thing.
Sire, this is not a struggle between rich and poor, as some have tried to convince you. It is a governmental question, and a most important one, since it is a matter of knowing whether all your subjects can or should be treated identically, and whether differences in conditions, ranks, titles and precedence should cease to be acknowledged. . . .
It was the descendants of those ancient knights who placed or kept the crown on the head of Your Majesty's forefathers. It was these noble descendents, poor and virtuous, who, for so many centuries shed their blood for the extension and defense of the monarchy, and who, with another kind of magnanimity, have neglected their own fortunes or spent them in order to dedication themselves entirely to the public good. The revenues of these pureblooded nobles are limited to the modest yield of the lands inherited from their fathers which they cultivate with their own hands, often without the help of any servants other than their children. Gentlemen such as these could be exposed to the humiliation of seeing themselves dragged off to the corvée! . . .
Consequently, in reflecting on the law and the constitution of this state, Your Majesty will no longer doubt that this plan, against which Your parlement protests only so that it may fulfill its duty, clearly leads to the annihilation of the time-honored exemptions for the nobility and the clergy, to the confusion of Estates, and to the subversion of the monarchy's constitutional principles.
Parlementary Argument against the Edict Suppressing the Guilds presented to the King at the lit de justice [seat of justice] of 12 March 1776
Liberty is without doubt the principle of all actions, it lies at the core of each Estate, and, above all, it is the life force and primary impetus of commerce. But Sire, this belief, so common today and which is heard from one end of the kingdom to another, must not be understood to mean unlimited liberty that knows no other law than its own vagaries, and acknowledges no rules beyond its own. This kind of liberty is nothing more than a veritable independence which would soon be transformed into unfettered license, opening the door to every abuse. This source of wealth would then become a source of destruction, a source of disorder, an occasion for fraud and plunderÑthe inevitable result being the total annihilation of the arts and of artisans, of confidence and of commerce. . . .
Sire, your subjects are divided into as many different bodies as there are Estates in the kingdom: the clergy, the nobility, the high courts and lower tribunals, the officers attached to these tribunals, the universities and academies, the banks and commercial companies. In every part of the state there are bodies that can be seen as links in a great chain, the first link of which is in the hands of Your Majesty as head and sovereign administrator of all that constitutes the body of the nation.
The very idea of destroying this precious chain should be appalling. The corporations of merchants and artisans form a necessary part of this indivisible whole which contributes to the general security of the realm. Sire, because independence is a defect in the political constitution and men are always tempted to abuse liberty, the law has instituted corporations, created guilds, and established regulations. The law has wished to prevent fraud of all kinds and to remedy all abuses. The law watches equally over the interest of the buyer and the seller; it maintains mutual confidence between the two; it is, so to speak, under the guarantee of the public trust that allows the merchant to display his merchandise before the customer and for the customer to receive it with confidence from the merchant. Guilds can be considered as so many small republics occupied solely with the general interest of all its members. And if it is true that the general interest results from the merging of the interests of each individual, it is equally true then that each member, in working for his own personal advantage, works necessarily, even without wishing to, for the true benefit of the whole community. To loosen the springs that move this multitude of different bodies, to annihilate the guilds, to abolish the regulations, in a word to disperse the members of all the corporations, is to destroy all the various means which commerce itself must want for its own preservation. Every manufacturer, every artisan, every worker will see himself as an isolated entity, dependent only upon himself and free to indulge his often disordered imagination. All subordination will be destroyed, there will be no more checks and balances, and the desire for profit will drive all the workshops. Since honesty is not always the surest way to wealth, the entire public, native and foreign alike, will be the constant dupes of well-prepared secret schemes designed blind and entice them. Sire, do not believe that in our constant concern with the public welfare we are yielding to foolish terrors. Our resolution has been prompted by the most powerful arguments, and Your Majesty would be within his rights to accuse us one day of prevarication if we tried to hide them. Our principal motivation is the interest of commerce in general, not only in the capital but in the entire kingdom, not only in France, but in all of Europe, in fact, in the entire world.
In Congress, July 4, 1776. A Unanimous Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled.
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their Future Security. Such has been the Patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Asent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their Public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.
He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation have returned to the People at large for their exercise, the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their offices, and the Amount and payment of their Salaries.
He has erected a Multitude of New Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.
He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our trade with all Parts of the World:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection, and waging War against us:
He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.
He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic Insurrection amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
THE party, Sir, which twelve months ago raised you to the administration, amused us with the most lofty presages of your future operations. They said, it is not intrigue, and it is not chance, which has raised this man to office, it is his personal merit. Far different from those who have gone before him, he will dedicate his attention to doing what the duties of his position require not to keeping his place as long as he can. The system of his predecessor will not be his. He is a man of genius, who will find his own agents while developing a plan based on his principles, which will alleviate oppression, diminish the taxes, and revive agriculture and commerce.
The public has now patiently waited for a whole year, expecting the execution of these promises. I could, however, if I pleased, compose an interesting and instructive volume of the faults you have committed; first against the French financial well-being; and second, against the principles of a sound statesman and a good politician.
More fortunate at your accession to office than I was, I left you nothing but good deeds to perform; the ill was completed before you took office. I had established an equilibrium between receipts and expenditures. I left the royal coffers amply replenished. You had nothing to do but to receive. All then that remained for you was to invent the best means of relieving the public burdens, which you decided that I had increased beyond all just proportion to the ability of the subject or the necessities of the King. When you came into office, you found the state without a system, and your predecessors shifting at random from day to day as they could.
What is it you have done? Given yourself over body and soul to a sect which has elected you their chief. You act only as they dictate, and you see only with their eyes. Their doctrines of administration are a tissue of ignorance, narrow views, and sophistry. The principles of their system are groundless and mistaken; the injury, therefore, that they do in office, and the mischiefs they inflict on the people of France, are continually growing more formidable. You have weakened the love of his subjects towards the best of kings. You have involved your sovereign, without his being aware of it, in a chaos of errors, from which you can never extricate him.
Sire, I will confine myself to showing how M. Necker and his works must look strange and harmful to all the good administrators of the state.
M. Necker suggests that the state has always hidden statements of finances. He goes on to say that the Kings talked about it only in the preamble of edicts which he suggests have no authority at all by affirming that experienced men do not believe in it anymore. Finally he says that the Finance Minister's moral characteristics have become the Monarch's only guarantee. . . .
I suggest that Your Majesty pay more specific attention to these strange assumptions. It is said that twenty-thousand copies of the report are on the street now. So twenty-thousand French citizens, curious about Your Majesty's business, are told that the King's word means nothing in the preamble of edicts. It is said all over France that experienced men do not believe in the King's word anymore. Also, the Minister's moral characteristics represent the last safety for the State. No, Sire, I am not inspired by a feeling of flattery; nor by M. Necker's character. I am only inspired by an outstanding monarch with integrity. M. Necker has only obtained just and striking criticism on the improper and costly ways he borrowed money. He will not succeed in convincing the French people that he represents your only guarantee.
He will nourish unhappy people's malice by maintaining that a state in disorder does not deserve credit. Nevertheless, I am sure of the French people's patriotism and devotion. If in the last century events wore them out, this new reign has revitalized all feelings. The English example of publishing accounts concerns only a worried calculator and selfish people. To apply it to France is to insult French patriotism. In fact, the French are sentimentalists, confident and entirely devoted to their kings. Everything will be lost in France, Sire, if Your Majesty allows His ministers to imitate the English administration for which Your Majesty's ancestors have shown so many and just aversions. . . .
Without misleading Your Majesty, I affirm that, until now, the state has only been insulted by unhappy people. It is then new in our history when M. Necker tells the party, that he calls public opinion, that, under a good king, a monarchical friend of the people, that the Finance Minister has become the only hope, the only guarantee to the experts who observe the government. M. Necker will not terminate the damage done to the dignity of the throne.
Having devoted all my time and my strength in the service of YOUR MAJESTY since you appointed me to this position, it is important for me to give you some public explanations concerning the success of my works and the actual state of the Finances.
I would have renounced to the satisfaction of . . . explaining my behavior, if I had not thought that by doing so, all this [information] could have been very useful to YOUR MAJESTY's affairs. Such an institution, if it became permanent, would be the source of the most important advantages because the obligation to publicly show his administration would influence a Finance Minister from the first steps in his career. Darkness and obscurity favor nonchalance. . . . This report would also allow each of the people—who are part of YOUR MAJESTY's Councils—to study and follow the situation of the Finances. . . . Such an institution could have the greatest influence on public confidence.
In fact, if one fixes his attention on the huge credit England enjoys, and which constitutes their main strength in war, it would be impossible to attribute it entirely to the nature of its Government. Because whatever the authority of the French Monarch is, his interests will always depend on fidelity and justice. . . .
Another reason for the great credit of England is the public notoriety to which the state of Finances is submitted. Each year this state is presented to the Parliament, then it is printed. And all the lenders who regularly know the proportion that is maintained between incomes and expenses are not troubled by suspicions and fanciful fears, which are always part of darkness.
In France, the state of Finances has always been a mystery. If sometimes somebody talked about it, it was only in the preambles of Edicts, and always when money had to be borrowed. But these words, too often the same to be true, have necessarily lost their authority, and men of experience only believe in it because of the moral nature of the Finance Minister. It is important to found confidence on more solid bases. . . .
The sovereign of a kingdom such as France can always, when he wants, maintain the balance between ordinary expenses and incomes. The reduction of expenses—which is always the wish of the public—belongs to the King. When circumstances require, only he has the power to increase taxes. But the most dangerous, as well as the fairest of resources, is to blindly look for some temporary aid, and to borrow either through increases of income or through savings.
Such an Administration, which seduces because there seems to have no more immediate problems, only increases difficulties and leads to the precipice. On the other hand, a more simple and frank behavior would multiply the means of the Sovereign and would save him forever from any kind of injustice.
It is then a great view of Administration from YOUR MAJESTY to have been allowed to give a public report on the state of your Finances. And I wish, for the happiness and the strength of the Kingdom, that this happy institution is not temporary. What is there to fear from such a report if [you] . . . make expenses proportional to incomes, and guarantee lenders, every time the needs of the State require their confidence!