CHAPTER VI - The Preparation of the "Grands Edits"

CfIAPTER VI. THE »REPARATION OF TIlE H GRANDS EDITSo" -THE "}~DITS" OF I ii6.---TUE BED OF' JUSTICE. I NTERR UPTED by the gutrre dts jar;nu, but still bent upon rooting up prejudices, privileges, and abuses; encouraged, besides, by the victory he had just gained, by the trust which the king had shown in him, and by the accession of his friend, the wise :Malesherbes, to the ministry, Turgot renewed, with all the activity of which he was capable, the study of his great plans, already in a \Oery forward state of progress. He did so without ostentation, but without mystery, and those who were to suffer from them could prepare leisurely to defend their interests, thos~ of their families and of their friends. In the forefront of his adversaries Turgot was to meet the parliament and then the clergy, the court, the Choiseul coterie, the Parisian uOllrgtOIS;f., threatened in the six trades-guilds which composed it, and, finally, in the cabinet itself, first the keeper of the seals, Hue de ttliromenil,and, lastly, the prime minister himself, :Maurepas.

The clergy looked upon him, not unreasonably, as a 132 Tttrgot. p/1t1osoL'''Jhe. They remembered that passage of the Con· cilia/cur where Turgot said, apropus of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: "Religion was dishonoured for the purpose of flattering Louis XIV"; they also remembered that other opinion, strongly expressed, that "the king should no more be th(~ head of the Church than the head of the Church be king."l H SuprellUlC}T, as the English understand it, and the temporal power of the Papacy, sueh are the two extreme points of abuses." Nor had the clergy forgiven him the efforts he had made to obtain the modification of the oath taken by the king on his corOllntion. Turgot had asked I ~ouis XVI to strike out of the o:\th the passage where he swore to H exter· minate completely from his dominions all the heretks condemned nominati\'elyby the Church." To this Louis XVI would probably have consented; he had been touched by the obsen·ntions which his contriUeltrgeneral had submitted to him; but, beset by ~Iaurepas, who did not wish to quarrel with the bishops, he had defended himself feebly, had yielded nt last, and had pronounced the old form, contenting himself with stammering it out in a few unintelHgible words.

A striking proof subsists of the effect which Turgot had produced upon the king whilst submitting to him his observations 1/h)ci 'l}()((. nnd by writing, whilst follow· ing him to Reims, for the purpose of speaking to him, up to the last moment, of the dedtln1tion of intolerance forced upon him. This proof consists in an autograph note of the king, dated Reims, June loth, 1775, addressed I!."cclesiasticlllOath. 133 to Turgot, and preserved amongst the Lantheuil papers: " I did not send for you, sir, to give you an answer to }'our letter of yesterday, because I preferred leaving with }'OU a written statement as a proof of the opinion I entertain of Y(JU on this "occasion. I think that the step you have taken is that of a most honourable man) one most deeply attached to me. I thank )'OU very sincerely for it, and I shall always be very much obliged to you for speaking to me with the same straightforwardness. I can N not, however, in the present circumstances, follow your advice; I have much weighed it since; I have conferred about it with several persons, and I think that there is less inconvenience in making no alterations; at the sam~ time, I feel none the Jess obHged for }'our ad\'ke, and you may del-.end upon its remaining secret, as I tru5l this letter will be.,---L()tHS."

Turgot took no trouble to conceal the step he had taken, and, besides, he did not consider himself as defeated. After the coronation, after the king had pro· nounced more or less distinctly the famous sentence, he addressed to him a long letter, in which he gave him on the subject of tolerance the most admirable ad\'ice and teaching. "Can religion order, can it permit crimes? To order a crime is tantamount to commit it; he who commands a murder is looked upon as a murderer. Now, the prince who orders his subject to proCess a fonn of"religionwhich the subject does not believe, or to give up the one he believes, orders a crime. The subject who obeys him is guilty of a lie; he betrays his own 134 conscience; he does a thing which he believes God for bids him to do:" Turgot, besides, does not helieve the king is bound by formulre C( drawn up in times too unenlightened. All is not lost, and )'our }lajesty cannot be obliged to carry out what would he an unjust measure."

The pietist party (parll dh!(}t), whose leader, then, was the Comte de Provence, expressed themselves with the greatest violence on the cOllfrtUtur general. He who was to be I..ouis XVIII even stooped low enough to write with his own hand a pamphlet against the minister; but this pamphlet, entitled Ie SOI1,gt de .ilf. tie ...'ffaurcpas, produced only very little effect; it converted no one, and was read only by those whose opinions were already formed. The pietists endeavoured to disturb the king's conscience by telling him that ~1. Turgot did not attend mass. ":M. Turgot does not attend mass ?~' I.ouis XVI asked 1\'1. de 1\laurepas. "I don't know, Sire/, answered ~laurepas; ce ~{. -Terray attended it daily." The queen did not like her expenditure to be controlled. Bailly relates that Turgot had obtained from the k;ng the promise that nQ bills payable at sight (ordonlla1ues au (omplant) should be given during a.

certain time. A few days afterwards, a bill for 500,000 livres was presented at the treasury in the name of a person belongin.r to the court. It was the queen, they said. Turgot went to ask· for the orders of the king. "I have been taken unawares," said the king. U Sire, (-:Oul:1 de Gllillcs. 135 ""hat am I to do?" U Don't p:l)"." The minister <obeyed, ~fnrie Antoinetteenergetically supported her fa\'ourites. It was in connection with a cuse referring to a friend of the Duke de Choiseul, namely, the Count de Guines, then ambassador in England, that she gave :Maurepas to understand the interest he had in not incurring her displeasure. The secretary of that diplomatist claimed from his chief large sums which he had been obliged to pay, or which he still owed for Exchange speculations. He pretended to have acted as the alias of his .ambassador, ?'ho, said he, speculated at the Stoc~k Exchange on the diplomatic secrets with whicn he was .acquainted. In order to support his defence, the Count de Guines asked the authorisation to produce before the law~courts some of his despatches to the king, and the council had refused to gmnt it. Very angry at this decision, the queen had obtained from the king the permission which the council, unanimously, had not thought it advisable to grant. l\Iaurepas, it is said, was stupefied at the influence exercised in that circumstance by the queen over the mind of the king; he took then the resolution of leaving Turgot to himsel(, giving up all participation in his reforms, and throwing him overboard, if necessary to preserve his o\m place.

Although warned of the intrigues going on around him, Turgot followed up his plan with the greatest .activity, and on the 5th of January, 1776, he laid before the council the six decrees which are his best title to 1urgot. glory j he obtained the assent of the king, after the most thorough discussion, and obliged the parliament to register them in a bed of justice, notwithstanding an opposition of an extremely violent chara<:ter. These decrees finally led to his downfall; he perished in the midst of his triumph. The six decrees presented by Turgot to the king on January 5th, 1776, were of unequal importance. The first had for its object the suppression of ({)t1'ces,. the second, the suppression of the police exercised in Paris over cereals; the third, the suppression of the offices concerning the wharves, markets, and ports in Paris; the fourth, the suppression of the mal/rises and jurandes; the fifth, the suppression of the l)oissy caissei the sixth and last, the modification of the duty on tallow.

'Ve shall deal exclusively here with the decrees relating to (UnleeS and jurandes. Several years before, Turgot had tried for the first time to free the peasants from the burden of (()rt 1ees,· it was at Limoges, where he held the office of in/enda1lt. He had recognised that the burden was very heavy for the persons subjected to it, and that the amount of labour it procured to the administration of public works was not very productive. He had accordingly tried to substitute for it a money-contribution. :Finding it impossible to modify the law, he had placed that contri bution on the same basis as the (OnlCe itself, and had made of it a kind of supplement to the capitation-tax by way of subscription. It was a money-redemption paid Decrees OIl the Con"ee.. 137 by the persons liable to the (on'et, somewhat analogous to what takes place now. Redemption,as everyoneknows, is optional at present; all the taxpayers do not avail them~ selves of it, and the moneyNsupplies on the one side, and the supplies in kind on the other, \':uy from department to department. But there is a fact worth noticing: the departments where the redemption occurs in the strongest proportion are those which (ormed the old Limoges genera/ill. It is a traditic)n which dates (rom Turgot's times.

In the general preface common to his six decrees Turgot rc¥stated the conversions in money made in his glnl:rali'/e,and, following his example, in several others. He said that he might have proceeded by way of an order, if he had thought of merely suppressing the ("On..,fl, or if, substituting for it a money~tax. he had laid that contribution exclusively upon those liable to tallage. But his object is a different one, and he affirms imme~ diately, and in the very first line of the preamble, that wha.t he wishes to realise is a complete revolution in the very assessmentof the taxes. His aim is, indeed~ to put down privileges~ and to render amenable to taxation the members of the nobility and of the clergy in the same conditions as all the other citizens. The decree <)n the (OT'/)/($ has been the most violently attncked of the six~ for the simple reason that it con tained so formal and so direct an attack against the privileged classes, and was a first step in the direc~ K Turgot.

tion of equality of all proprietors with reference to the taxes. "The weight of the burden," says he, "only falls, and can only faU on the poorest class of our subjects, those whose only property is their manual labour and their industry, on cultivators and farmers. Landowners and almost all the privileged classes are either exempt from it or contribute to it in an infinitesimal degree; and yet it is to landowners that roads are beneficial, by the value which multiplied communications give to the produce of their lands.... It is therefore the class of L'lndowners which derives the profit from the making of the roads; and they should advance the mone)', since they derive the interest from it. How can it be fair to oblige those people to contribute who have nothing that they can call their own; to make them give their time and their labour unremunerated, to take from them the only resource they have against misery and hunger, comp~lling them to work (or the benefit of citizens richer than them selves? •.. Through the account which we have C',aused to be drawn up of the roads to be constructed and kept up in the various provinces, we believe we may venture to assure our subjects that in no year shall the expense for that purpose exceed the sum of ten millions for the whole of the pays d'(/ecl;o1t. The object of this c.ontribution being an outlay useful to all landowners, we will that all land owners, whether privileged or not, should help towards it, a.s is the custom in all local charges."

The preamble and the statement of the decree on the "lfironlc1lil 01t the (ortlle. 139 suppression of (onJtCS hnd been thoroughly 5tudit~d, and at great length, previous to their being submitted to the king, and they were nftenvards examined, and minutel}' examined, by the keeper of the seals, lIue de ~{iromenil. In his history of the downfall of the am~it1l ,..;'gi11lt, Cherest tens us that the king asked, besides, the opinion of another member of the council, who, he thinks, was }Ialesherbes. The memoir ascribed by Cherest to ~Ialesherbes is preserved in the State l)aper Office. l\liromenil has drawn up his observations in following, paragraph by paragraph and clause by clause, the preamble and the statement of the decree. lie begins by declaring his impartiality; he does justice to the intentions of the author of the project, and expresses his de~ign not to oppose a real contradiction, but to discuss as it deserves so important a matter. lIe then recapitu lates the works of Orry and Trudaine, who thought that the (Orl)!.t might be amended, but should not be suppressed ; he tries to prove that all classes profit by the good condition of the highways.; cc landowners,~l he says, "are not the only persons who derive henefit from roads kept in good order; travellers, waggoners,even peasants who go on foot. equally reap the advantage."

To this Turgot answers: "\Vith respect to the peasants who go on (oot, the keeper of the seals will allow me to believe that the pleasure of walking on a well¥pebbled road does not compensate them for the trouble they have had in making it without remuneration." \Ve wish we could quote (rom end to end, so instruc K '2 Tltrgot. tive it is, the discussion carried on, pen in hand, by these two distinguished men. 1vliromcnil shows a great deal of dexterity, and produces under the most various, and often under novel forms, arguments, the substance of which is rather old. It seems as if he does not wish to carry these arguments to extremities, and he appears to believe that nlOdifications, easily accomplished, would suffice to reconcile the most opposite minds. Turgot does not allow himself to be shaken or disconcerted by any argument: he has always an answer ready. Since we cannot reproduce here all l\-Iiromenil's objections, and Turgot's answers on the subject of the compensationutax destined to form the fund for the maintenance of the highroads, we must at any rate give the principal ones.

ce I shall not repeat here," says l\firomenil, "what I have already said in my observations on the preamble to the project, with reference to the inconvenience that can be found, generally speaking, in the assessment of a land-tax substituted for the c()n·,eeof manual labour and of horses; but I shall state that the complete destruction of all these privileges is perhaps dangerous. I do not allude to those attached to certain offices, which I readily look upon as abuses, purchases for money, rather than as veritable privileges; but I cannot help sayin~ that the privileges of the nobility should be respected in :France, and that it is, 1 think, in the king's interest to maintain them.)) Turgot answers: "The keeper of the seals seems Tllrgols A1tS1lJcrs. here to adopt the principle that, by virtue of the consti· tution of the State, the nobHityshould be (ree from aU taxes. He seems even to think that it is dangerous to go against such 3 prejudice. If this prejudice is a universal one, I must be very much mistaken on the way of thinking of all the well·inlormed men I have seen in the course of my life; for I do not remember any society where such an idea would have been considered other· wise than as an antiquated pretension given up by all enlightened men even in the nobility. . . . The govern· ment expenses having for their object the interest of all, all should contribute to them, and the greater the advantages one derives from society, the more honoured one should feel to share in its burdens. From this point of \<iew the many privileges of the nobility cnn hardly seem fair.U In another passa.ge Turgot adds the followingreflections: U A further reason finishesrendering this privilege more unfair, more onerous, and at the same time less worthy of respect. It is this: through the ease with which we can purchase a patent of nobility there is no rich man who ('.annot at once become a nobleman; so that the nobility includes the whole body of the rich, and the cause of the rich is no longer that of the distinguished families against the TO/II';er. but that of the rich against the poor. The motives one might have had for respecting that privilege if it had been restrictedto the families of the old defendersof the State. cannot certainly be looked upon with the same eye when it has become shared by the brood of Tlt'J'got.

excise~farmers (/raila/lls) who have plundered the country. Besides, what a govemment that would be which would lay all the public burdens upon the poor and exempt the rich from them I" The memoir ascribed by Cherest to l\{alesherbes contains analogous observations expressed in nearly identical terms. Turgot reasonably maintained that the doctrine he upheld was the one always maintained by the statesmen who had tried to re-establish order in the finances, beginning with Desmarets, Orry, and ~Iachault, down to himself. "All the ministers of the finances," said he, "without exception, have thought and acted in that direction; all have endeavoured to consolidate the tax of the twentieth, all have tried to restrict the privilegeof the capitation-tax." The author of the memoir shares this opinion; he thus begins: " Every nobleman, I admit, is not rich, but every rich man is noble. . •• The tax which, in the eyes of reason and of justice, should be in proportion to the fortune, has become on the contrary a tax from which one is exonerated by virtue of one's for tune"; he ends in the following words: "From all I have said, I conclude that the objection raised by the parliament on behalf of the privileges of the nobility is not grounded; it would be very dangerous if the king allowed this system to obtain some favour, because it tends to destroy all the good that has been done during the last hundred years, and all that can still be ac complished in the way of taxation. Finally, although I am not more a friend of despotism than I have ever been, I shall always say to the king, I shall say to the parliament, I shall say aloud, if necessary,in the presence of the whole nation, that the present case is one whkh the king should decide by his absolute will; and here is my reason: if the question is properly understood, it is a suit between the rich and the poor. No\v, of whom does the parliament consist? Ofpersonswho areal1 rich, compared with the people, and who are all noble, since their offices imply nobility. \Vh() are the persons con stituting the court, so powerful in its outcry? The high personages of the State, the majority of whom possess domains which shall pay the tax, but not the ,()Tt,te. 'Vhat does the Paris public consist of? A great many nobles or rich people enjoying the privileges of nobility (they are the loudest in their protests), and a multitude submitted to other impositions, but paying neither tallage nor (on'le. Consequently, neither the remonstrances of the parliament, nor the cheers of the Parisians, nor even the complaints of the courtiers should exercise any prejudice in this affair. . . . Let the states general or provisional be summoned in France, it is my heartfelt wish, and that of aU good Frenchmen.

Let these assemblies be so constituted that the people may make themselves heard, and not have for sole representltives bailiffs, seneschals, office--bearerswhose interests are totally different from those of the real people, and who are always depending-,upon a grandee or a minister; then I shall think it just that to such an assemblythe assessment of the taxes should be left; but 144 Turgot. so long as the people are not represented in the parlia ments, the king, after hearing them, should judge by himself, and judge in favour of the people, because they are the poorest of an.» Turgot yielded to 1\1iromenil only on the question of the clergy, but even then he retains his opinion. " The privilege of the clergy is liable to the same discussion as that of the nobility; I do not believe it to be better grounded. However, as by suppressing the tithes and the incidental sources of income (caslIeI), the Church property does not make up a very important item, I do not mind putting off to another time the examining of principles and dismissing here the question, so far as the clergy is concerned, although the proposal about it is a.

very just one." And, alluding to ~laurepas's opposition, he adds: "and perhaps the opinions of the king and of the minister are not settled enough to justify us in having to enter upon two quarrels at the same time/' ~nr()menil pretended that thl~re were in France three great orders--the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate; each of these orders had its rights, its privileges, its prejudices, perhaps, and it was necessary to retain them, such as they were. "The keeper of the seals:' Turgot answers, et talks of the privilegesof the Third Estate. Now, we know that the nobility and the clergy have privileges; we know also that in the Third Estate some towns and some private guilds have privileges also. But the Third Estate, taken as a body, are far from enjoying privileges ,; what they possess is the very reverse, since Turgot alld AfirOllttlzil. 145 the burdens which persons exempted from them would have borne always £'dl upon those who do not enjoy the exemption."

~L de ~liromenit read the answers which 'Turgot had written on the margin of his observations, and then returned to him the whole bundle of papers with the following letter: H ~1. de ~liromenil sends a thousand compliments to ~f. Turgot, and forwards to him the projet(/'tdif with his observations. He likewise returns the papers concerning the fees payable for the use of the mills (balla/ilh), acknowledging at the same time that he is not mu<.~h impressed by :M. 'rurgot's answers to his objections." The king was more impressed by these answers than the keeper of the seals had been, and he allowed the decrees to which he had given his approval to be placed before the parliament on the 9th of February, 1776. 'rhe persons opposed to these decrees had spent in orga nising their resistance all the time which elapsed between the presentation of the decrees to the king and February 9th. 'I"urgot's friends, who were aware ?f this, and felt :mxious, wanted to have done. "The wen~intentioned in the parliament,'t Trudaine wrote, "who are but few, wish that firmness should be displayed, and therefore we must make haste. The longer the delay, the more time our opponents will have to prepare."

The parliament registered the decree on the suppres~ sion of the Poissy (0;1$(, and named commissioners to examine the others. On the 17th of February the Turgot. proturtur generaland the commissioners declared them selves unfavourable to the decree on the suppression of the (On1les,' votes were taken, and it was decided that "remonstrances should be made to the king, entreating him to withdraw the aforesaid decree as inadmissible both in substance and in its clauses. A bed of justice was inevitable; impossible to doubt that things must come to that extremity. However, as Malesherbes hesitated to use it, nearly one month was lost, during which the cabals assumed a character of extreme violence. Trudaine kept on urging promptness of action. " The public excitement," he wrote, "bears upon everything; we see a thousand cabals, active, violent, audacious, attacking the existence of the ministers. They are seen to be quiet, slow, often undecided, and people suppose them to be undecided, anxious, frightened. No one knows even whether they are united amongst themselves.

In this position every delay is fraught with danger .•• Since the assembling of the parliament securities are fallingat the Stock Exchange. This state of things will go on till the king has decided." The king, on his side, did not seem moved. ~rarie Antoinette, writing to ~Iaria Theresa, said: "The king has made decrees which will lead perhaps to fresh quarrels with the parliament; let us hope that these quarrels will not go as far as under the last reign, and that the king will maintain his authority.» But J\,Ialesherbes, Turgot's friend and collaborator, Oppositiol/' 1o liergol. 147 asked that modifications should be introduced in the statement of the decree on the (Ortl"ct , in order to prevent certain administrative abuses; if the assent ot the parliament could not have been obtained, he would have wished an application to be made. to the emIr des Aides. Trudaine maintained that these half~measures would be regarded as proofs of weakness. Turgot naturally shared Trudaine's opinion. The king was on Turgot's side; they consequently resolved on holding a bed of justice.

But, in the meanwhile, the pamphlet warfare ,,-as going on with ever~increasing activity. Every day a fresh request, a fresh memoir, fresh songs, epigrams, jokes. " :M. de Malesherbes fait tout; M. de Sartine doute de tout; M. Turgot brouille tout; M. de SaintvGermain renverse tout; M. de Maurepas rit de tout." Turgoes friends were annoyed by all these attacks: that was wrong j they got angry: that was worse. The council satisfied them by punishing the authors of the memoirs and pamphlets, and their works were suppressed by a decree of February 22, 1776. The parliament saw a challenge in this act of severity; and, on the 23rd of the same month, by way of answer ing Turgot's friends, they prosecuted a work directed against the privileged classes, creating much sensation, and entitled Its Inconvenien(sdtS tlroi'lsflotlaux. The Tttrgot. author, Boncerf, was a clerk under Turgot; he owned the book, and was summoned to appear in person before t he court. The work seems very moderate to those who read it now. The author enunlerates very calmly the inconveniences attending upon feudal rights, and merely proposes that the redemption of them should be allowed or made obligatory. The present vassals might be per mitted to redeem their estates; their heirs alone would be compelled to do so. The parliament considered the discussion of that system in the light of a crime, and condemned the brochure as "injurious to the laws and customs of France; to the sacred inalienable rights of the crown, and to the right of property in the case of private individuals; its aim was to shake the whole con stitution of the monarchy, by exciting an the vassals against their lords and against the king himself, as it denounced to them all the feudal and domanial rights as so many usurpations, vexations, and violences equally odious and ridiculous."

'rurgot immediately ordered Boncerf to come to him at Versailles, with the view of shielding him against the parliament, and he required that all prosecution should cease at once. On learning this act of vigour, Voltaire could not restrain his joy, and wrote to Audibert, on the 28th of February, 1776: "You know perhaps that the parliament having caused the public hangman to burn at the foot of the principal staircase an excellent book written in favour of the people by M. de Boncerf, ?vI. Turgot's chief clerk, and having further ordered the (Jpellit1c.( of Ilas/ililies. 149 author to appear in person before the court, his ~fajesty has written commanding the parliament to sup~ presstheirsentencc, and prohibiting them from denouncing books. Denunciations, the king says, are in the provim~e of the solicitor-general exclusively, and even he cannot denounce any publication without previously taking the orders of his ~fajesty. These are judgments worthy of Titus and of .Marcus Aurelius; but the gentlemen of the p:trliament are not senators of Rome. As for )1. Turgot, he seems quite like an old Roman."

AU these skirmishes had preceded the opening of the great hostilities. A merciless war was about to be waged at last; it was unfortunately to end by the defeat of the champions of equality, and by the triumph of the league of the privileged CAstes. It is on the 2nd of ~·tarch, 1776, that the parliament had decided upon the wording of its remonstrances. They had sent a deputation to Versailles to carry them to the king, asking him to fix a day and an hour when they might be officially presented to him. On the 7th of :\Iarch a second deputation had come to take the orders of the king. Louis XVI received the deputation, and answered: U I have examined the remonstrances of my parliament; the)' contain nothing which has not been anticipated and made the subject of serious considera~ tion." If the parliamenthas not registeredthe decree on the suppression of the (tJnJ(tS, it is because that suppression is a violation of justice: so the remonstrance says. U The first rule of justice consists in preserving to everyone what belongs to him: this is a fundamental rule of natural law» international law, and civil government; this rule does not consist merely in maintaining the rights of property, but in preserving those which belong to the individual, and which originate with the prero· gatives attached to birth and social condition. • . ."

" The right of (On,fee belonged to the 'Franks over their dependants. . . • 'Vhen these serfs obtained their free dom, by becoming free citizens but ro/uriers,they likewise became subject to the conlee. If you compel the nobles to pay a tax for the redemption of the COrlfee, contrary to the maxim 'nul n'es/ (()ri..,cable 5':1 flul tall/able,' )?OU pronounce them Hable to tallage (faillables) just as if they were no noblemen." The refusal to listen to the remonstrances really an nounced a bed of justice; but, before giving an account of it, we must examine the decree on the suppression of the jurandes and maU,ises (workmen's guilds and cor porations), which was carried to the same bed of justice as the decree on the abolition of the (on,ltt. The suppressions of the }urande.sand moUrises,and the establishment of unfettered labour, constitute Turgot's greatest reform, that in which his individual action has been most visible, and which has finally triumphed with the Revolution through the mere power of liberal ideas.

The suppression of privileges and the introduction of civil equality may be and have been the result of another passion than that of freedom; this is proved by the ",4holf/ieJ1t oj Jttra1ides. 15 1 whole of our history since 1789' The protectil'e systenl and the organisation of labour are not incompatible with what people c.an moderng()1/trnmtnIJ,that is to say, the governments which have succeeded to the antinl ,egtllle, Accordingly it is to Turgot, much more than to the Revolution, that we owe freedom of labour.; and it is to freedom of labour inaugurated h}p Turgot that the f"rance of the nineteenth century, after the final triumph of the great minister's ideas, owes the wonderful manifestation of industrial power which our generation has been able to witness. The preamble of the decree on the abolition of }urandes is a masterpiece which we must examine, and the principal parts of which we must make known by extracts.

The right of labour is a natural one; it has been inter fered with by institutions, old, it is true, but which could not be legitimised either by time, or by opinions, or by the acts of the authority which seem to have invested them with a species of consideration. In nearly nIl the towns the exercise of the different arts and trades was concentrated within the hands of a small number of masters, forming guilds, and who alone had the privilege, to the exc::lusionof all the other citizens, of making or selling the objects of the special trade of which they had the exclusive privilege. Those persons who wished to take up an art or a trade as a profession, could suceeed only byobtaining the rank of master (maUnie); norcould they be received mastersexcept after a series of long, toilTurgot. some, and superfluous tests, and at the cost of multiplied exactions, which made him who underwent these tests lose part of the capital which he would have needed to establish himself in life, to get up a trade, or open a workshop.

Those who could not meet these expenses were obliged to have only a precarious existence under the authority of these masters, to languish in poverty, or to carry to foreign parts an industry with which they might have benefited their own country. The citizens of all classes were deprived of the right of selecting those they would have wished to employ, nor did they possess the advantages they would have found in competition for low prices and perfection in workman· ship. The simplest \vork could often be performed only by applying to workmen of different guilds, and one had to put up with the slowness, the dishonesty, the exactions favoured by the pretensions of these guilds, and the caprices of their arbitrar)"and selfish regime. " These abuses have crept in by degrees. Originally they resulted from private interest acting against the public one. It is after a long interval of time that the authority, now taken by surprise, now deceived by a semblance of usefulness, gave to these abuses a kind of sanction. The origin of the evil is in the very power allowed to the workmen of the same trade to assemble in one guild."

The preamble shows that the trades' corporations were born at the same time as the C()111111Ilnes. 'Vhen the /1 OltS(~S c0111zectedwitlt the l'faUrises. 153 to\vns bc,:.tan to throw off the feudal yoke, and to form (Om1ll111lf.S, the facility of classifying the citizens accQrding to their professions introduced this custom, which was till then unknown. U The various professions then became, in a fashion, so many separatc communities of which the general community was made up. The ecclesiastical brotherhoods, by further fastenin~ the bonds which united together persons belonging to the same profession, furnished them with more frequent oppor tunities of assembling together, and occupying themselves, in these meetings, with the common interests belonging to that special society, interests which they prosecuted with steady activity, to the prejudice of those which concerned the general society. The communities, once formed, drew up statutes, for which they got the authorisation of the police, under various pretexts of public benefit."

The preamble then goes on to enumerate the clauses of most of the statutes belonging to the various communities, tyrannical as they a.re, and contrary to the public good. The principal object of these communities was to limit as much as possible the number of the masters, and render the acquisition of the masterships almost impossible for any but the children of the masters. U The spirit of monopoly which has directed the drawing up of the statute has been pushed to the last extremity. Therearesomewhichexcludefrom apprentice ships. and. consequently, from masterships, the young men who marry before they have obtained the position of L 154 T1trgot. masters. \Vomen are excluded (rom the professions the most natural to them, as embroider)', which they may not do on their own account. "'Ve shall not (ollow an)' further the enumeration of the dispositions, fantastic, tyrannical, contrary to humanity and morality. with which those obscure codes are full, drawn up by avarice, adopted unexamined in obscure times, and which, had they been known, would have been the object of public indignation."

The decree comprises 24 articles. Article 1 declares that all persons, even foreigners, are (ree to exercise any trade, profession of arts, or industry they like, and even to exercise several together. All guilds and corporations of trades and artizans are suppressed, as also the maUn"sesandjurandes. Articles 2 and 3 direct all traders and artizans to make a preliminary declaration before the lieutenant~ general of police, in order that a register of entries may be kept. Articles 4 and 5 exempt from the previous clauses the barbers, hairdressers, bath~keepers (efuvi'sfes), because their masterships had been officially created, and the moueys paid for th~m had been entered amongst the incidental income of the king. • • • The goldsmiths, chemists, printers, and booksellers were likewise ex~ empted, as being under special police regulations. Articles 6·9 stipulate the conditions under which the entries of the artizans should be made· on the registers, and the precautions to be taken (or the sale of drugs.

l?efor111S: their C"haratlel". 155 Article 10 establishes syndics in the various districts or the towns throughout the kingdom. especially in l)aris; these syndics shall watch over the traders and workmen of their respective districts; without any distinction of trade or profession. they shall send in reports to the head of the police, receive and transmit his orders. Articles 1 I and 12 give the summary proceedings from which the lieutenant~general of police shall judge the disputes arising {rom bad and defective labour. The gardu1urh (members of the jury of a guild or corporation) .are expressly prohibited by Article 13 to continue the exercise of their functions. Article 14 is the one which has most frequently been attacked since the Revolution. It forbids all masters, companions, workmen, and apprentices of the guilds and c.orporations to form amongst themse1\'es any association or assembly under any pretence whatever.

The following articles settle questions of jurisdiction, of procedure, and prescribe the forms to be observed in the liquidationof the various communities, especiaUythose of the city of Paris, the net result orwhich, after all debts paid, was to be equally divided between the masters~ Such is the celebrated decree which introduced in France {or the first time the freedom of work. The detrnctors of the reform were numerous then; there are still some at the present day; we shall reproduce their objections, for the parliament appropriated them, whilst giving an account of the bed of justice. J.. : Turgot. That assembly, in which Turgot's famous decrees were registered, took place at Versailles, l\{arch 12th, t 776. The speakers were the king, the keeper of the seals, Hue de ~Iiromeni1, the senior president, d'Aligre, and Scguier,the crown advocate. " Gentlemen," said the king, "I have assembled you to make my will known to you; my keeper of the seals shall state it."

ltiromenil then spoke. He briefly explained what the decrees were, justifying them, even the one on the sup.. pression of the (OrfleCS, which he had so perseveringly opposed in the council. His speech is, in a certain sense, a very brief analysis of the general prenmble, and of the preambles special to each decree. The duties of his office obliged him to defend what he had so strongly attacked. The senior president, speaking on behalf of the par.. liament, after the keeper of the seals, expressed him self in a pompous style, and as if struck by terror. H Sire, on this day when your ~Iajesty displays your power only through the conviction that you are manifest inq your kindness, the pomp with which your l\{ajesty is surrounded, the absolute exercise you are making of your authority, impress all your subjects with profound dread, and are for us the omen of a terrible constraint ••.• 'Vhy should deep sadness offer itself to-day to the august looks of your :Majesty? If you condescend to survey your people, you see the people in a state of consterna tion; if you look at the metropolis, you find it ...Sp~c(h of d'A/igre. 157 al:umed ..••This decree (the one on the conlttl), by the introduction of a ne" kind of perpetual and arbitrary taxationon Jand, inflicts serious prejudice on the pros..

pects both of the poor and of the rich, and constitutes a fresh bIo" on the natural freedom of the nobility and the dergy, whose distinctions and rights are bound up with the constitution of the monarchy. n Going on, next, to the decree on the suppression of the 1'1l'OlllJ($, he dedares that ce such a decree breaks at once a)) the ties of order established for the professions of merchants and artizans. It lea\'es without rule and without order turbulent and licentious young men, who, s('.arcelykept within proper bounds by the public police, by the discipline preserved in the various communities, and by the domestic authority exercised by' the masters over their companions, are capable of rushing into excesses of every kind. The keeper of the seals caused the decree on the (OrVeeS to be read next, and he said to ce the people of the king" that they were at liberty to speak. Seguier then pronounced a discourse, in which he developed all the arguments developed by ?\liromenil in his private obsen'ations, concluding by proposing that, in times of peace, soldiers should be employed in the maintenance of the roads.

After this address, to which no answer was made, the keeper of the seals took the orders of the king, previous to collecting the votes, for form's sake beginning with the princes of the blood, then, having first walked up to the kin~, and walked down again to reach his place, he pronounced the (ollowing words, seated, and with his hat on : "The king, holding his bed of justice, has ordered and does order that the decree just read shan be registered at the greiJe (registrar's office) of his parliament." The same ceremony took place for the other decrees, namely, the one on the police measures regulating the sale of corn in Paris, and the one for the suppression of offices in the market.places. The decree on the abolition ofjllralldes only came fourth. In order to state the reasons which the parliament had for resisting that decree, Seguier made a speech much longer than the previous ones.

From his point of view, the corporations might be looked upon as so many small republics exclusivelyen grossed by the general interest of all the members which compose them; and, if it is true that the general interest is formed by the combination of the interests of all the members in particular, it seemed to him that every member, ""hilst labouring for his own private benefit, worked necessarily even, unknown to himself, for the real benefit of the whole corporation. If you loosen the springs which set in motion this multitude of different communities, if you destroy the urandes, if you abolish the regulations, in one word, jf you disunite the members of all the communities, you suppress the resources of every kind which trade itself should desire for its preser vation.

,s"Cgttier's Re1Jlarks. 159 The king's advocnte then drew the picture of the isolated workman free to indulge in all the excesses of an imagination often unruly, eager for gain, and preparing secret means for duping both his fellow-citizens and foreigners. "It is these bonds (those of the r;gillle pro ceeding py regulations), these restrictions, these prohibi~ tions, which make the· glory, the safety, the immensity of French commerce." Seguier readilyacknowledged that there were defects in the constitution of the comnlunities; "but there are no institutions into which some defects have not crept; and there is an immense difference between getting rid of abuses, and destroying the corporations where these abuses may be found.') The number of communities seemed to him too great. U'Vhat is the use, for instance," said he, "that flower-girls should form a community sub· ject to regulations? what is the need of statutes to seH flowers and make bouquets of them?" There are unions which he found opportune, such as that of the tailors with the old~clothes men, the eating-house keepers with the sellers of roast poultry (r6Ii'sseurs),the bakers and the pastry~cooks. He likewise admitted that women might rise to the mastership in order to be dress makers, embroiderers, hairdressers. "But we must retain what has been sanctioned by Henry IV, Louis XIV, SullYt and Colbert. Never was prince more be loved than Henry IV', and Colbert) who changed the face of :Franceand revived trade, caused an order to be issued to the effect that all persons carrying on traffic or 160 Turgot.

commerce in the city of Paris should be for the future constituted as communities ofjurantles and mai/ri'ses." After Seguier's harangue, the decree was registered. The decree moderating the duty on tallow, read the last, gave occasion to a few remarks only, and the long sitting, which had been protracted over five hours, concluded with the usual form and ceremony. It is worthy of notice that Articles 13 and 14 of the decree on the jurandes, which, later on, created such discussions amongst the economic and liberal school, suggested no observations at the time when the decree was published, and gave rise to no contestation either on the part of the trades-guilds in the memoirs \vhich they caused to be drawn up and distributed, or on the parl of the parliament in its remonstrances, or, finally, on that of the crown advocate in his harangues at the bed of justice. The articles we allude to are those which prohibited all associations or assemblies of workmen or masters belonging to the same business.

It is in our time alone that persons have seen in these articles the translation into a leRis]ative enactment of the famous maxim for which Adam Smith has been so much blamed, and which has been sometimes excused on the ground that it was nothing but a whim. It was, however, the sincere expression of fear lest the law should not protect with sufficient efficaciousness the freedom of the consumer. Ada.m Smith wrote that persons belonging to the ./1ssocialiolls Forbiddell. 161 same trade seldom meet, even for a pleasure-party or for motives of distra«::tion, but the conversation ends by some plot against the pUblic, or some machination to raise prices. Dy forbidding artizans to associate and meet together, Turgot, we must own, placed an impediment in the exercise of a right which the liberal school has always daimed in modern timl~s. But, on the day when he suppressed the lIlaUrist'S and the juramfts, he had not a ", and this silOuld be borne in mind"···..either the thought or the pretension of legislating on the right of speaking and of association. He wished simply to bring back the corporations to the common Jaw of the day; and the common law, then, in ~"ran<:e, implied neither the right of association nor that of meeting.

The endeavour to reconcile the right for private individuals to form associations, and the right for the State to protect itself against what has been caned a stall fi,lz"thin lIlt Stall, is an altogether new problem. Turgot had not to preoccupy himself in 1776 about a question which was not born, and, beSIdes,if, anticipating the future, he had tried to solve it, would he be very guilty for not having succeeded? It is a problem which, for the last hundred rears, has been in France the most constant preoccupation of statesmen belonging to all parties. 'Ve, have had governments founded upon the principleof authority,and others founded upon the principle of liberty. The latter have not, on this point, given more satisfaction than the former to liberal views; Tttrgot. and the laws on the freedom of association do not yet exist. The rights of associations and those of the State are still opposed to each other. The discussion is even now pending, and no one has }'et succeeded in discovering the formula which shall guarantee them respectively with()ut either enslaving the citizens or disarming the State.