CHAP. LI.]

DECLINE OF FRENCH INFLUENCE.

255

CHAPTER LI.

IN which agitated in the two preceding chapters,

N the events which agitated Eastern Europe since the Peace

So

we cannot help observing the decline of the political influence of France. That Power seemed to be no longer the same which had dictated the Peace of Westphalia, and during the reign of Louis XIV. had terrified all Europe by her arms and embroiled it by her negotiations. An abstinence so repugnant to her natural temper was imposed upon her by the necessities of her internal condition, and especially by the disorder of her finances. great was her need of repose, that one object alone, the desire of striking a blow at England, might tempt her to draw the sword. The Peace of Paris was felt as a humiliating blow by both the Bourbon Courts, and especially by that of Versailles. The Duke de Choiseul, in conjunction with Grimaldi, Minister of Charles III. of Spain, made some endeavours to reopen the treaty of 1763, and renew the war with England. Circumstances, however, were not yet ripe for such an undertaking, and they deemed it prudent to defer their projects of revenge to a more favourable opportunity. A diabolical scheme which they had formed (1764), to burn the dockyards at Portsmouth and Plymouth, was fortunately discovered in time by Lord Rochford, our Ambassador at Madrid, and happily frustrated.'

As the financial embarrassments of France paralyzed her foreign policy, so the profligate conduct of Louis XV. and his Court was daily alienating the people and producing in their minds that disgust and aversion which ultimately overthrew the Monarchy. The death of Louis's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, in 1764, was only followed by a deeper plunge into vice and shame, by the now elderly Monarch. He seemed, indeed, for a while, to be awakened to a sense of repentance and amendment by the death of his ill-used consort, Maria Leczynska, in June, 1768; but these symptoms were of short duration. In the autumn of that year his valet de chambre Lebel, the purveyor of his infamous pleasures,

Coxe, Spanish Bourbons, vol. iv. p. 317.

256

INFAMY OF LOUIS XV.

[CHAP. LI. introduced to his notice one Jeanne Vaubernier, a woman of abandoned character, the mistress of the proprietor of a tennis court. This creature at once acquired a complete ascendency over the sensual Monarch. He married her to an elder brother of her former keeper, created her Countess du Barri, and introduced her at Court, nay, even to his own daughters. It might be derogatory to history to narrate these particulars, but for the fact that, under the ancient régime, the reigning mistress too often controlled the destinies of France. Such was the case in the present instance. The pride of Choiseul forbade him to court the infamous favourite; and he even tried to awaken Louis to a sense of his disgrace in "succeeding all France." His indignation, which we cannot characterize as entirely virtuous, appears to have been sharpened by disappointment. His sister, the Duchess de Gramont, had failed to attract the notice of the King, and found herself supplanted not only by a woman without reputation, but even a roturière. The new mistress, however, was supported by the Chancellor Maupeou, and by the Duke d'Aiguillon, a bitter enemy of Choiseul's, who had formerly purchased the King's favour by sacrificing to him his mistress, Madame de la Tournelle, afterwards Duchess of Châteauroux. In about a year the intrigues of this faction effected the overthrow of Choiseul. Louis dismissed that Minister, December 24th, 1770, on the ground that he had nearly involved France and Spain in a war with England, and in a letter brutally abrupt, directed him to proceed forthwith to his château of Chanteloup.

The annexation of Corsica to France was among the last acts of Choiseul's administration. That island had been under the dominion of the Genoese since the year 1284, when they had conquered it from the Pisans. The government of the Genoese Republic had been harsh and tyrannical. The cruelty exercised by its agents in collecting the taxes had occasioned an insurrection in 1729; since which time the island had been in a constant state of anarchy and semi-independence. They elected their own chiefs, and in 1755 they had chosen for their general the celebrated Pascal Paoli, second son of Hyacinth Paoli, one of their former leaders. Pascal Paoli, whose father was still alive, was now in his thirtieth year. He held a command in the military service of Naples, and was distinguished by his handsome person as well as by his abilities and courage. Having established himself at Corte, in the centre of the island, he organized something like a regular government, and diverted the ferocious energy

CHAP. LI.]

CORSICA SOLD TO FRANCE.

257 of the Corsicans from the family feuds in which it found a vent, to a disciplined resistance against the common enemy. The French had assumed the part of mediators between the Genoese and their rebellious colonists as early as 1751. That Republic had succeeded in retaining only some of the maritime places; and three of these had been occupied by the French in 1756, but without hostilely interfering between the contending parties, and only in their quality of mediators. The occupation, however, was abandoned at the end of two years; till, in 1764, the Genoese having experienced the difficulty, not only of subduing the rebels, but even of retaining the places which they held, besought the French to return; and by the Treaty of Compiègne put into their hands for a term of four years Ajaccio, Calvi, Bastia, and San Fiorenzo. The Corsicans made a fruitless attempt to induce France to recognize their independence by offering the same tribute which they had been accustomed to pay to the Genoese. It may be mentioned, as illustrating the degree to which the philosophical notions then prevalent had affected the minds even of practical men, that Colonel Buttafuoco, the Corsican agent, was instructed to request the groundwork of a constitution from the pen of J. J. Rousseau, and to invite that philosopher to Corsica in the name of Paoli's government. The French Court behaved disloyally both towards their allies the Genoese and to the Corsicans. The latter were deceived with false hopes; while, during a four years' occupancy, a debt was contracted which the Republic of Genoa was unable to discharge. The Genoese, too proud to recognize the independence of their rebellious subjects, made over Corsica to France for a sum of two million francs, May 15th, 1768. The Corsicans resolved to defend themselves, but in the following year were subdued by superior forces, and placed under the government of France. These proceedings excited great indignation in England. General Paoli and many of his companions fled their country. Paoli came to England, where he was fêted and caressed; but the English Government did nothing for Corsica, and ultimately acquiesced in its subjection.'

Among the causes of Choiseul's fall was the part which he had taken against the Duke d'Aiguillon. That nobleman had been accused of maladministration in his office of Governor of Brittany, and a process had been instituted against him in the Parliament

1 See Klose, Leben Pascal Paolis. Anecdotes of Paoli's residence in England will be found in Boswell's Life of Johnson.

S

He died in London, February 5th, 1807, and was buried at St. Pancras.

258

REFORM OF MAUPEou.

[CHAP. LI.

of Rennes. The King evoked the suit before the Parliament of Paris; and finding that body hostile to his favourite, he annulled their proceedings in a Lit de Justice, and published an Edict infringing the privileges of the Parliament. That body tendered their resignation, and refused to resume their judicial functions, though commanded to do so by the King, till the obnoxious Edict should be withdrawn. The Court solved the question by a coup d'état. On the night of January 19th, 1771, the members of the Parliament were awakened in their beds by the Royal musquetaires, with a summons from the King to declare yes or no, whether they would resume their functions. All but thirty or forty refused. Even these, having speedily retracted, were sent into exile, as their refractory comrades had been before, and the Council of State was charged with the provisional administration of justice. These proceedings were followed by others still more arbitrary and illegal. The Parliaments throughout the Kingdom were entirely suppressed, and in their place six Superior Councils (conseils supérieurs), with power to pronounce judgment without appeal, except in a few cases, both in civil and criminal causes, were erected in the towns of Arrâs, Blois, Châlons, Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, and Poitiers. For the Parliament of Paris was substituted a body of seventy-five persons, nominated by the King, whose places, therefore, were neither purchased nor hereditary as formerly, and who were forbidden to take presents (épices) from suitors. This body was nicknamed, after its contriver, the Parlement Maupeou.

All this was done under the colour of reform and intellectual progress, affected in those days by the most arbitrary Sovereigns. Louis XV. was to figure as a liberal with Frederick II. of Prussia, Catharine II. of Russia, and Joseph II. of Austria. The preamble of Maupeou's Edict, abolishing the Parliaments, developed ideas designed to attract the philosophers, and really succeeded in catching some of the Encyclopædists, including their chief and patriarch, Voltaire. Nor can it be denied that some of the alleged motives were sufficiently specious.. Thus Maupeou took credit for abolishing the sale of offices, which often prevented the admission of persons into the magistracy who were most worthy of it; and for rendering the administration of justice both prompt and gratuitous, through the suppression of the Judges' fees, and by relieving, through the establishment of the conseils supérieurs, provincial suitors from the necessity of going to Paris.' Nor, if 1 Martin, Hist. de France, t. xvi. p. 284.

CHAP. LI.]

ABOLITION OF FRENCH PARLIAMENTS.

259

we regard the political functions assumed by the Parliament of Paris, was there much to regret in its fall. Never, surely, was a political machine invented of so much pretension and so little power. A Royal Edict was of no avail till sanctioned and registered by the Parliament; yet, if this sanction was withheld, the King had only to hold a Lit de Justice, and enforce compliance. A body so constituted, and composed principally of one class in the State, could never hope to be a constitutional power; and, accordingly, its resistance to the Royal will, though sometimes productive of serious disturbance, always ended in defeat. Nevertheless, the abolition of the Parliaments was unpopular with the great majority of the French nation. In the first place, the Ministry from which these reforms proceeded was not only suspected, but despised. The Parliaments, again, despite the vices of their constitution, were really popular. They were the only exponents of the national voice; and in general the members, whose dignity and independence were secured by their places being hereditary, though purchased, had shown themselves the friends of liberty and progress. The people recollected that it was they who had opposed the feudalism and Ultramontanism of the Middle Ages, and that to them alone they could now look for any barrier against Regal despotism. These sentiments were shared by many of the very highest rank. Out of twenty-nine Peers present, eleven had opposed the registry of the Edicts against the Parliaments; and what seemed still more serious, all the Princes of the blood Royal, except one, had protested against the proceedings of the Court, and even denied the King's power to issue such an Edict as that of the Lit de Justice. The Advocate-General Séguier, had, at the time, warned the King to his face against the course he was pursuing, and bade him remember that even in the greatest Monarchies, disregard of the laws had often been the cause or the pretext of revolutions.

This blow against the State had been preceded a few years before by one against the Church. Choiseul, in conjunction with Madame de Pompadour, had effected the expulsion of the Jesuits from France; and it has been thought that the fall of that Minister was hastened by the revenge and intrigues of the disciples of Loyola. The fall of the Jesuits concerns the general history of Europe, and we have, therefore, abstained from touching on it, till it could be narrated in its totality. We have already said that this movement originated in Portugal, and was the work of Pombal. To the influence of the Jesuits it was ascribed that