But Turgot was something more even than the best man of his party. He was the best worker. While Voltaire clamoured and wept for humanity, while d’Alembert thought, Grimm wrote, Diderot talked, and Condorcet dreamed and died, Turgot laboured. Broad and bold in aim, he was yet content to do what he could. Of him it might never be said ‘L’amour du mieux t’aura interdit du bien.’ To do one’s best here and now, with the wretched tools one has to hand, in the teeth of indolence, obstinacy4, and the spirit of routine, to compromise where one cannot overcome, and instead of sitting picturing some golden future, to do at once the little one can—that was this statesman’s policy.
[Image unavailable.]
ANNE-ROBERT-JACQUES TURGOT.
From an Engraving5 by Le Beau, after the Portrait by Troy.
{207}
It was so far successful, that all men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche6 of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot.
His father was the Provost of Merchants in Paris, and has earned the gratitude7 of Parisians by enlarging the Quai de l’Horloge and joining it by a bridge to the opposite bank of the Seine, and by erecting8 the fountain in the Rue9 de Grenelle de St. Germain.
Anne Robert Jacques was his third son, and a timid, shy little creature. His mother, who, en vraie Parisienne, thought everything of appearance and manners, worried him on the subject of his clumsiness and stupidity, which naturally made the child self-conscious and increased the faults fourfold. When visitors arrived to flatter Madame by admiring her children, Anne Robert hid under the sofa or the table; and when he was removed from his retreat, could produce no company manners at all. No wonder the mother never even suspected the strong intellect and the wonderful character that so much awkwardness concealed10.
Anne Robert’s birth was contemporaneous with Voltaire’s visit to England, and took place on May 10, 1727. The child had already two brothers. The eldest11 was bound, after the foolish custom of the day, to follow his father’s profession;{208} the second brother must go into the army; and for Anne Robert there was nothing left but the Church.
He followed Voltaire and Helvétius at the school of Louis-le-Grand, and when sufficiently12 advanced, moved on to the College of Plessis. As a schoolboy his pocket-money disappeared with the usual rapidity, but not in the usual way. This shy little student gave it to his poorer companions, to buy books. From the time he was sixteen—that is in 1743—until 1750, he was a divinity student. At Saint-Sulpice, whither he went in 1748 on leaving Plessis, he took his degree as a Theological Bachelor, and from there entered the Sorbonne.
The Sorbonne, which was swept away by the Revolution, was a very ancient Theological College and in some respects not unlike an English university. Young Turgot found there Morellet and Loménie de Brienne, besides a certain Abbé de Cicé, to whom in 1749 he addressed one of the first of his writings, a ‘Letter on Paper Money.’
In 1749, Turgot was made Prior of the Sorbonne, in which r?le he had to deliver two Latin lectures, choosing for his themes, ‘The Advantages of Christianity,’ and ‘The Advance of the Mind of Man.’ All the time he was reading, thinking, observing on his own account, studying{209} especially Locke, Bayle, Clarke, and Voltaire. A priest he soon knew he could not be. To be sure, the fact that his friend Loménie de Brienne is a sceptic will not prevent him becoming a cardinal15 and Archbishop of Toulouse; he would have been Archbishop of Paris had his Majesty16 not been so painfully particular as to demand that the Primate17 of the capital should at least believe in a God. But Turgot was of other metal and was not minded to live a lie. All his friends begged him to keep to the lucrative18 career assigned him, surely, by Providence19! ‘You will be a bishop,’ says Cicé comfortably, ‘and then you can be a statesman at your leisure.’
The argument was very seductive; but this student was in every respect unlike other students, with a character breathing a higher and finer air than theirs. Morellet records, not without the suspicion of a sneer20, that from their coarse boyish jokes he shrank as one shrinks from a blow. Even Condorcet, himself so pure in life, laughed at people wasting time in quenching21 the desires of the flesh; but Turgot vindicated22 purity as well as practised it, and reached a level of principle, as of conduct, which in the eighteenth century was unfortunately almost unique.
His father, wiser than most parents in like circumstances, countenanced23 his objections to the{210} priesthood. He had already studied law, as well as theology. In 1750 he left the Sorbonne, and Loménie gave a farewell dinner in his rooms, with Turgot and Morellet of the party, and the light-hearted guests planned a game of tennis behind the church of the Sorbonne for the year 1800.
The year 1800! Before then the Sorbonne itself had perished with Church, monarchy24, and nobility; shallow Brienne, having done mighty25 mischief26, had poisoned himself in the chateau27 his ill-earned wealth had been gained to restore; Morellet was writing revolutionary pamphlets; and Turgot was dead.
In 1752, two years after he left the Sorbonne, Anne Robert obtained the legal post of Deputy Counsellor of the Procurator-General, and a year later was made Master of Requests.
One must picture him at this time as a tall, broad-shouldered, rather handsome man, with that old boyish constraint28 in his manner, and that strict high-mindedness which his own generation could not be expected to find attractive. Add to these qualities that he was not in the least carried away by dreams and visions, as were nearly all his friends, that even then he saw the world as it was, and meant to do with it what he could—that, though in lofty aim he may have been an idealist, he never fell into the idealist’s fault of believing{211} that, because there is everything to do, he must do everything, or nothing. Just, reasonable, practical—what a wholesome29 contrast to your visionary Rousseaus, ay, and to your impulsive30 Voltaires! He was not a brilliant person, this; it is said that he was slow in everything he undertook. Nor had he given over the vigour31 of his youth and the strength of his understanding to any one party. He was studying them all.
He was about three or four and twenty when he first began to go into the intellectual society of Paris—when Montesquieu, d’Alembert, Galiani, Helvétius, found the stiffness of manner more than redeemed33 by the wealth of the mind. Presently he was introduced to Madame de Graffigny, and complimented her by writing a long review of her ‘Letters from a Peruvian,’ which, as giving his own views on education, on marriage, and on the fashionable avoidance of parenthood, retains all its interest. It is strange to hear a pre-Revolutionary Frenchman urging love-marriages—‘Because we are sometimes deceived, it is concluded we ought never to choose’—and strange also that, out of all the great reformers with whom his name is associated, Turgot alone perceived the fearful havoc34 which neglect of family duties makes in the well-being35 of the State.
He was presented to Madame de Graffigny by her{212} niece, Mademoiselle de Ligniville. The bright and charming Minette naturally did not find it at all difficult to draw Anne Robert of five-and-twenty from the intellectual society of her aunt’s salon36 to a game of battledore and shuttlecock à deux. Morellet, watching the pair, professed37 himself pained and astonished that their friendship did not end as nearly all such friendships do and should.
Most of Turgot’s biographers have sought the reason why Mademoiselle de Ligniville became Madame Helvétius and not Madame Turgot—and have not found it. As for Turgot, he said nothing. It remains38 idle to speculate whether he conceived for her a passion, which his gaucherie and shyness, perhaps, prevented her from returning; or whether he had already devoted39 his life to his public duty, and thought that private happiness would be deterrent40 and not spur to his work for the race. An unhappy or an unrequited affection is one of the finest incentives41 to labour and success one can have. It may be that Turgot had it. The only certain facts are that Minette married Helvétius, and that Turgot remained her life-long friend.
In 1754 he made the acquaintance of Quesnay and of de Gournay, the political economists43, who influenced not a little his life and thought. He soon began writing articles for the Encyclop?dia,{213} though he never joined in that battle-cry of the Encyclop?dists, écrasez l’infame, and was wholly without sympathy for the atheism44 of d’Holbach and the materialism45 of Helvétius. Turgot, indeed, may be said to have been, in the broadest acceptation of the term, a Christian13; or rather he would be called, and call himself, a Christian to-day. But his Christianity was not of Rome nor yet of Protestantism, but that in whose honest doubt there lives more faith than in half the creeds46. He certainly gave little expression to it. It was the religion of the wise man—which he never tells.
When he was on a geologising tour in Switzerland, in 1760, he saw the great Pontiff of the Church of Antichrist at Délices. That generous old person was warm in delight and admiration47 for his guest. D’Alembert had introduced him, and d’Alembert’s friends must always be welcome. And then Turgot’s article on ‘Existence’ in the Encyclop?dia had made even more impression on this impressionable Voltaire than on the world of letters in general. He took this young disciple48 to his heart at once. Well, then, if he is not precisely49 a disciple, he is at least a most ‘lovable philosopher,’ and ‘much fitter to instruct me than I am to instruct him!’ It was Voltaire who was dazzled by the young man’s splendid possibilities, not the young man who was dazzled by Voltair{214}e’s matchless fame and daring genius. Turgot was never dazzled; it was his greatness, if it was also his misfortune, to see men and the world exactly as they are.
In 1761 he was made Intendant of Limoges. It was the great opportunity; he had wanted practical work—not to think, to write, or to dream. Voltaire wrote of him afterwards as one ‘qui ne chercha le vrai que pour faire le bien.’ He wanted to Do; and here was everything to be done.
The picture of provincial50 France before the Revolution has been painted often, but the subject is one of which the painter can never tire and to which he can never do justice.
The Limoges which Turgot found was one of the most beautiful districts of France—and one of the most wretched. Here, on the one side, rose the chateaux of the great absentee noblemen, who, always at Court, left behind them middlemen to wring51 from the poor innumerable dues, with which my lord, forsooth, must pay his debts of honour and make a fine figure at Versailles. The few nobles who did live on their country estates expected their new young Intendant to be an agreeable social light, as his predecessors52 had been, who would keep, for the élite of the neighbourhood, an open house where one would naturally find{215} good wine, rich fare, and delightful53, doubtful company.
On the other hand were the clergy54—often ignorant, but generally cunning enough to play on the deeper ignorance of their flock by threats of the Hereafter, and to keep from them that knowledge which is the death-blow of superstition55.
Then there were the poor. Picture a peasantry whose homes were windowless, one-roomed huts of peat or clay; who subsisted56, in times of plenty, on roots, chestnuts58, and a little black bread; who had neither schools nor hospitals, teachers nor doctors; who were the constant prey59 of pestilence60 and famine; whose bodies were the possession of their lords, and whose dim souls were the perquisites61 of the priests. Consider that these people were not allowed to fence such miserable62 pieces of land as they might possess, lest they should interfere63 with my lord’s hunting; nor to manure64 their wretched crops, lest they should spoil the flavour of his game; nor to weed them, lest they should disturb his partridges. Consider that, if such land could have borne any fruit, a special permission was required to allow its owners to build a shed to store it in. Consider that their villages, in which they herded65 like beasts, were separated from other villages by roads so vile66 that they would have rendered commerce difficult,{216} if legal trammels had not made it impossible. Consider that these people had been scourged67 for generations by hundreds of unjust and senseless laws, made by and for the benefit of their oppressors, and that they were now the victims of taxes whose very name has become an indictment68, and whose description is a justification69 of the French Revolution.
On the one flank they were whipped by the taille—the tax on the income and property of the poor, which absorbed one-half of the net products of their lands—and on the other by the corvée, which compelled them to give yearly twelve or fifteen days’ unpaid70 labour on the roads and the use of a horse and cart, if they had them. The milice demanded from each parish its quota71 of soldiers (the rich being exempt72 as usual), and compelled the parishes to lodge73 passing detachments of military and to lend cattle to draw the military equipages. The gabelle, or tax on salt, forced each poor man to buy seven pounds of salt per annum—whether, as in one province, it was a halfpenny a pound, or, as in another, it was sixpence—and let the noble, the priest, and the Government official go free. Toll-gates were so numerous in the country that it is said fish brought from Harfleur to Paris paid eleven times its value on the journey. Wine was taxed; corn was taxed.{217}
But this was not all. If these taxes were cruelly unjust, they were settled and regular. Irregular taxes could be levied74 at any moment at the caprice of the despot at Versailles, who no more realised the condition of his peasantry than an ordinary Briton realises the condition of a tribe of Hottentots. One, called with an exquisite75 irony76 the Tax of the Joyful77 Accession, had been raised when Louis the Fifteenth reached the throne of France—to topple it down the abyss. Another was the vingtième, or tax on the twentieth part of a franc, which could be doubled or trebled at the pleasure of the Government.
Apart altogether from the taxes, the peasantry were subject to tithes78 exacted by the Church, itself exempt from all taxation79, to large fees for christening and marrying, for getting out of the misery80 of this world and avoiding worse misery in the next.
The clergy were on the spot to exact these dues, just as the middleman was on the spot to exact the dues for the nobles. Some of these dues and seigneurial rights are so shameful81 and disgusting that their very terms are unrepeatable. Even that vile age permitted many of them to lapse82 and become a dead letter; but the number, and the full measure of the iniquity83 of those that were insisted on, has never been counted, and will never be known until the Day of Judgment84.{218}
What effect would hundreds of years of such oppression have on the character of the oppressed? Hopeless, filthy85, degraded, superstitious86 with the craven superstition which made them the easy prey of their unscrupulous clergy and left them wholly sensual and stupid; as animals, without the animals’ instinctive87 joy of life and fearlessness of the morrow; with no ambitions for themselves or the children who turned to curse them for having brought them into such a world; with no time to dream or love, no time for the tenderness which makes life, life indeed—they toiled88 for a few cruel years because they feared to die, and died because they feared to live. Such were the people Turgot was sent to redeem32.
What wonder that many men gave up such a task in despair; that many even good men found it easier to prophesy89 a Golden Age in luxurious90 Paris than to fight hand to hand against the awful odds91 of such an awful reality? Turgot was thirty-four when he went to Limoges, and forty-seven when he left it. He spent there the most vigorous years of his life; if he did not do there his most famous work, he did his noblest.
He began at once. It was nothing to him that his own caste shot out the lip and scorned him. Cold and awkward in manner, regular and austere92 in habit, and as pure as a good woman, of course{219} they hated him. But it was much to him that the clergy who ruled the people were also his foes93, that that very people themselves were so dull and hopeless, that they too suspected his motives94 and concluded that because for them every change had always been for the worse, every change always would be. Slowly, gradually, he gained the favour of the priest and the love of the flock. He could not turn their hell into heaven: he could not make earth at all what Condorcet, uplifted in noble vision, would dream it yet might be. But he could do something.
In 1765, he procured95 for Limoges an edict restoring free trade in grain in that province. Versailles, wholly abandoned to its amusements, did not in the least care whether edicts were granted or whether they were revoked96. Turgot did care. He perceived that the Court was not minded to be plagued with his reforms; and he plagued it till it gave him what he wanted—to go away.
Then he turned to the other taxes. The existence of a privileged class which pays nothing and devours97 much by its shameful exactions, is itself a monstrous99 thing. Taille is the crowning iniquity; but it will take a Reign100 of Terror to kill it. In the meantime Turgot, in the teeth of the besotted ignorance and opposition101 of the wretched beings{220} he was trying to help, could and did see that it was fairly administered.
In place of the personal service demanded by the corvée, he substituted a money-tax; which was better for the taxed and better also for the roads.
With regard to the milice, he proposed wide changes. But since the Government would not rouse itself to act on the proposals, he took advantage of its self-indulgent indifference103 and permitted evasions104 of the law; when an unlucky creature drew a black ticket in the conscription in Limoges, the new Intendant permitted him to find a substitute or to pay a fee. He also built barracks, which removed the necessity for quartering the soldiers on the poor.
The fearful trammels which ‘crippled trade and industry and doomed105 labour to sterility,’ he in part removed. He made new roads; he became President of the first Agricultural Society in the district; he founded a veterinary college. In the teeth of strong opposition he promoted the cultivation106 of the potato; and by having it served daily at his own table proved to the ignorance of the peasants that it was at least safe for human food. He also introduced the growth of clover, and entirely107 suppressed a worrying little tax on cattle. He first brought to Limoges a properly qualified108 midwife, who taught her business to{221} other women. This was the beginning of the Hospice de la Maternité. During Turgot’s Intendancy the china clay, of which the famous Limoges pottery109 was afterwards made, was discovered.
Besides these public acts, he was engaged in hundreds of small individual charities. Among others, he educated at his own expense a youth whose father had been entirely ruined by taxation and famine. The youth was Vergniaud, afterwards the stirring orator111 of the Revolution.
In his home-life Turgot remained most frugal112 and laborious113, treating his servants with a benevolence114 then accounted contemptible115, and working out his quiet schemes with an infinite patience and thoroughness. When he was offered the richer Intendancy of Lyons, he would not take it. Here, as he said of himself, though he was ‘the compulsory116 instrument of great evil,’ he was doing a little good. Only a little, it might be. But if every man did the little he could—what a different world!
In 1765, he paid a visit to Paris, and in the Calas case, made famous by Voltaire, spoke117 on the side of tolerance118 with a vehemence119 unusual to him. Morellet, d’Alembert, and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse were still his friends. Condorcet was in his closest intimacy120, and destined121 hereafter to{222} write his Life—‘one of the wisest and noblest of lives,’ says John Stuart Mill, ‘delineated by one of the noblest and wisest of men.’
In Paris, he met Adam Smith, the political economist42. As a result of their acquaintance Turgot produced in the next year his ‘Reflections on the Reformation and Distribution of Wealth,’ fertile in conception, arid122 in style, and anticipating many of the ideas familiar to English readers through Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations.’
But the insistent123 claims of Limoges on his time and pity narrowed his hours for study, even for the study that would serve it well. In 1767 he cleared the province of wolves, by a system analogous124 to that by which Edgar rid Wales of the same pest.
Then, in 1770, Limoges and its Intendant began their fight with want. When Turgot came to the province, the wretched place was a million francs in arrears125 for its taxes. Some he had certainly lessened126. The work he had started was just beginning to bear its first little harvest of good, when there came the withering127 blast of the two years’ famine. Its horrors were unthinkable. Turgot wrote to Terrai, the Controller-General, that it was impossible to extort128 the taxes and the arrears without ruin—ay, and with ruin—to the taxed. The people could not only not pay what{223} was demanded of them, but they had nothing to sell for the barren necessities of their own existence. God knows they had learnt by long and bitter practice to subsist57 on little enough! But now they must surely sit down and die.
Strong and calm, Turgot rose up again. From the Parliament at Bordeaux he obtained permission to levy129 a tax on the rich in aid of the sufferers. He himself opened workshops in which he gave work, and paid for it, not in coin, which would certainly be spent at the nearest cabaret, but in leather tickets which could be exchanged for food at the cheap provision shops, also of his own institution.
Far beyond his age in every practical scheme for the benefit of mankind, he was beyond our own age in that he clearly perceived that the free soup-kitchen, and all the sentimental130 philanthropy which gives money in lieu of work, instead of paying money for work, must be demoralising, and in the long run create more misery than it relieves. ‘Such distributions,’ said he, ‘have the effect of accustoming131 the people to mendicity.’ Even through a famine he sent to prison every beggar he could lay hands on. Then, again far beyond his age, he induced the ladies of the district to teach the poor girls needlework; and so to give them ‘the best and most useful kinds{224} of alms—the means to earn.’ The fight was long and hard. But it had its reward. The people came to love him who had helped them to help themselves; who had given them, not the bitter bread and scornful dole3 of charity, but the power to earn a livelihood132 and their first taste of self-respect.
On May 10, 1774, Louis the Sixteenth succeeded to the throne of sixty-six kings; and on July 20, Turgot was made Minister of Marine133 and thus called to wider and fuller work. The Limogian peasants clung about his knees with tears, and the Limogian nobles rejoiced openly at his departure. The one leave-taking was as great a compliment as the other.
The merits of this ‘virtuous philosophic134 Turgot, with a whole reformed France in his head,’ had not been in the least the reason of his promotion135. But schoolfellow Cicé had whispered pleasant things of him to Madame Maurepas, the wife of the Minister; and Madame had settled the matter with her husband, who was a lively shrewd old man of seventy-four, not inconvenienced by any idea of duty, and with a very strong sense of humour.
Turgot was Minister of Marine for just five weeks; but in that time he had eighteen months’ arrears of wages paid to a gang of workmen at{225} Brest, and made many plans for the improvement of the colonies, which more than twenty years ago, at the Sorbonne, he had significantly compared to ‘fruits which cling to the parent tree, only until they are ripe.’ On August 24, 1774, he was made Controller-General of Finances in the place of Terrai.
It sounded a fine position, but was it? Limoges represented all France in little. A ruined Treasury136, a starving people, in high places corruption137 and exaction98, and in low places misery such as has rarely been seen since the world began.
Terrai, profligate138 and dissolute—‘What does he want with a muff?’ said witty139 Mademoiselle Arnould when he had appeared with one in winter; ‘his hands are always in our pockets’—had left to his successor, debt, bankruptcy140, chaos141. The King was not quite twenty, weak with the amiable142 weakness which is often more disastrous143 in a ruler than vice102. The Queen was nineteen, careless and gay, loving pleasure and her own way, and meaning to have both in spite of all the controllers in the world. Maurepas, being undisturbed by principles, would readily abandon his protégé if he perceived for himself the least danger in that patronage144. Voltaire, indeed, wrote that he saw in Turgot’s appointment a new heaven and a new earth, and the enlightened among the{226} people dreamt that the Millennium145 had come, but Voltaire was but a voice crying in the wilderness146, and in the councils of State the people had neither lot nor part.
Once again Turgot, realising to the full the difficulties, the impossibilities even, of his position, resolved to do what he could. Within a few hours of his appointment he wrote a long letter to the King, urging the absolute necessity of economy in every department, denouncing bribes148, privileges, exemptions149, and pleading—daring to plead—equality in the imposition of taxes. No bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, no loans—this was to be the motto of his Controllership. ‘I feel all the perils150 to which I expose myself,’ he wrote. He was not even religious in the sense—what a sense!—that officials were expected to be religious. ‘You have given me a Controller who never goes to Mass,’ grumbled151 Louis to Maurepas. ‘Sire,’ answered the Minister, very happily, ‘Terrai always went.’
The new Controllership was still a nine days’ wonder when Turgot restored throughout France what he had restored in Limoges—free trade in grain. In 1770 he had written on the subject some famous ‘Letters’ in answer to Terrai’s revocation152 of the edict and the witty ‘Dialogues’ of Galiani which supported that revocation. Then,{227} bolder still, he suppressed an abominable153 piece of official jobbery, the Pot de Vin, or bribe147 of 100,000 crowns which the Farmers-General had always presented to the Controller when he signed a new edict. If the Farmers turned away sulkily, angry with a generosity154 they were by no means prepared to imitate, from the country came a long burst of passionate155 applause.
‘It is only M. Turgot and I who love the people,’ said the King. Well, this poor Louis did love them, but his was not the love that could stand firm by the man sent to save them. ‘Everything for the people, nothing by them,’ was Turgot’s motto, and, perhaps, his mistake. The King was to be the lever to raise his kingdom; and the weak tool broke in the Minister’s hand.
The first disaster of Turgot’s Controllership was the disaster that spoiled his Intendancy. In 1774-5 scarcity156 of bread made many distrust his edict restoring to them free trade in grain. With his firm hand over Louis’s shaking one he suppressed the bread riots of that winter, as it was never given to a Bourbon to suppress anything. But he would not in justice suppress, though he might have suppressed, Necker’s adverse157 pamphlet on the question, called ‘The Legislation and Commerce of Grain;’ though half the Encyclop?dists, and many of Turgot’s personal{228} friends, were led thereby158 to adopt the opinions of the solid Genevan banker.
In the January of 1775, Turgot presented his Budget. The deficit159 left by Terrai was enormous. Let us pay then, said Turgot’s sound common-sense, the legitimate160 contracts of Government, not by your dear old remedy, taxation, for the ruined country can yield no more, but by limiting the expenses of that Government and of the Court. Officials and courtiers alike took as a judgment from Heaven the fact, that very shortly after this monstrous proposal, the audacious proposer was sharply attacked by the gout.
Turgot’s Controllership lasted in all twenty months, and for seven of them he was very ill. When he was blamed once for overworking himself and trying to force everybody’s hand, ‘Why, do you not know,’ he answered simply, ‘in my family we die of gout at fifty?’ His present illness kept him in his room many weeks, but did not prevent him from dictating161 an enormous correspondence, and trying urgently to persuade his master to begin his economical reforms by having his coming coronation ceremonies performed cheaply at Paris, instead of expensively at Rheims; and to make good his professions of tolerance by omitting from the service the oath binding162 him to extirpate163 heretics. Of course Louis was too weak for these{229} drastic measures; he characteristically contented164 himself by mumbling165 the oath, and the senseless expenses of the coronation were as large as ever.
But Turgot, undaunted, went on working. In January 1776 he presented to the King what have been justly called the Six Fatal Edicts—the first for the suppression of corvée, four for the suppression of the offices interfering166 with the provisioning of Paris, and the sixth for the suppression of jurandes or the government of privileged corporations. The first and sixth were the real cause of battle, and embodied167 one of the great aims of Turgot’s administration—to make the nobility and clergy contribute to the taxes.
A shrill168 outcry of indignation rang through Versailles. Make us pay! Us! The Court had always scorned Turgot with his shy, quiet manner, his gentle aloofness169, and the reflection cast, in the most odious170 taste, by the purity of his life on its own manner of living. But now it hated him. Tax us! Curtail171 our extravagances! Reduce our expenditure172! What next? He has already abolished a number of our very best sinecures173 and lessened the salaries attached to several enticing174 little offices where we were enormously paid for doing nothing gracefully175! He has given posts to persons fitted for them instead of to our noble and incompetent176 relations! If one of us (even when{230} one of us is the Duc d’Orléans himself) wants to do something—well—illegal, he will not allow it! As though the makers177 of law could not be its breakers if they chose! And Versailles rustled178 indignantly in its unpaid-for silks, whispered, murmured, connived179 at the fall of this quiet, strong person who had not a thought in common with them—nor a thought of himself.
But he had a more dangerous enemy than the Court—the Queen. Quick-witted, wilful180, impetuous, with a husband whose slow, hesitating intellect she must needs despise, clever enough to love to meddle181 with great things, but not wise enough to meddle well—Marie Antoinette took her first deep step down the stairway of ruin when she chose to be Turgot’s enemy instead of Turgot’s friend. Could he have saved her too, if she would have let him, as, but for her, men thought he might have saved France? God knows. Marie Antoinette wanted to be amused, and her particular amusement, gambling182, was very expensive; she was infinitely183 good-natured and impetuously in love at the moment with Madame de Lamballe, and wanted for her the revival184 of the old post of Superintendent185 of the Household, with its enormous emoluments186. And at her side stood Turgot, saying, ‘No.’ Maurepas had long since deserted187 him. It was much easier, and safer for one’s own interest, to give the{231} Queen what she wanted and have done with it. As for Louis, he was, as usual, weak with the weakness that brought him to the guillotine and ended the French monarchy.
Turgot so far controlled him that the six Edicts were registered by the unwilling188 Parliament of Paris. Then Monsieur, afterwards Louis the Eighteenth, expressed in a pamphlet of very feeble wit the feelings of the upper classes against this terrible reformer. That paltry189 skit190 had already turned the King against his Minister, when Maurepas showed him a sharp financial criticism on Turgot’s calculations as Controller-General, and some forged letters purporting191 to come from Turgot and containing expressions offensive to the Royal Family. Not man enough to take them to Turgot and demand explanation, the wretched King went on distrusting him and giving him feeble hints to resign.
But until there was a better man to occupy his place, Turgot would take no hints. For the sake of France he would push those Edicts through, and gain his principles before he lost his power.
Then another friend failed him. Malesherbes, the brave old hero, who was hereafter to defend and to die for his King, but who, as Condorcet said, found on every subject ‘many fors and{232} againsts but never one to make him decide,’ resigned his post in Turgot’s government. ‘You are fortunate,’ says hapless Louis gloomily, ‘to be able to resign. I wish I could.’ The storm was coming up fast. But the first man on whom it was to fall remained calm and staunch.
On April 30, 1776, Turgot wrote to his King a note begging him not to appoint Amelot as Malesherbes’ successor, and containing these ominous192 words: ‘Do not forget, Sire, that it was weakness that brought the head of Charles the First to the block.’ Louis made no answer. Finally, the match was put to the tinder of the Queen’s wrath193 by Turgot’s dismissal from office of her worthless protégé, de Guines; and the Minister, it was whispered, had also declined to pay a debt she had incurred194 for jewellery, as against the new rules he had himself made. Rules for a Queen! This must certainly be the end of Queens or of Ministers! In this case, it was the end of both; only Turgot’s fall came first.
As he was sitting writing, on May 12, 1776, Bertin arrived to announce to him that he was no longer Controller-General. He had been drawing up an edict; laying down his pen he observed quietly, ‘My successor will finish it.’ His successor, it has been well said, was the National Assembly.{233}
Two days later, Marie Antoinette wrote exultantly195 to her mother of his dismissal. What did she care for the just reproaches of the King and of the whole nation, which that old kill-joy, Mercy Argenteau, declared that this deed would bring on her head? She would have liked her enemy turned out of office and sent to the Bastille the very day that de Guines was made a Duke. Poor Queen! Her little triumph was so short, and her bitter punishment so long!
On May 18, Turgot took farewell of his master in language nobly dignified196 and touching197. ‘My one desire,’ he said, ‘is that you may find I have judged wrongly, that I have warned you of imaginary dangers.’
Clugny was appointed Controller-General; corvée and jurandes were re-established; the edict establishing free trade in grain was revoked. The Court rejoiced aloud; the Paris Parliament was delighted. Old Voltaire at Ferney, indeed, wept and said that this was death before death, that a thunderbolt had fallen on his head and his heart; and the wise knew that nothing could save France now.
Turgot retired198 quietly into private life. That he was disappointed, not for himself, but for his country, is very true. True, too, he was angered at the backstairs policy which had dismissed{234} him. But far beyond this, there was so much he could have done, which now he could never do! Faithful to his life-long principle of gathering199 up the fragments that remain, he read and studied much, corresponded with Hume and Adam Smith, often met and talked with Franklin, went to see Voltaire when he came to Paris in 1778, made experiments in chemistry and physics, and was active in private benevolence.
Was the brief evening of his life solitary200? The one human affection which, in its perfection, makes loneliness impossible, was not his; or at best was his only as a dream or a memory. But in the great family of earth’s toiling201 children he must have known there were many to love and bless him, many he had saved from wrong or from sorrow, some whom he had made from beasts into men. Another blessing202 was his—he did not long survive his active labours. He died March 21, 1781, aged110 fifty-four.
A failure, this life? It may be so; but a failure beside which many a success is paltry.
Turgot could not save France from her Revolution, but he gave her, and all countries, practical, working theories on government, on the liberty of the press, on the best means of helping203 the poor, on the use of riches, on civil, political, and religious liberty, which are still invaluable204.{235}
He has been justly said to have founded modern political economy; to have bequeathed to future generations ‘the idea of the freedom of industry;’ and to have made ready the way for the reforms which are the glory of our own day.
Among Voltaire’s fellow-workers there are far more dazzling personalities205. But from their fiery206 words, exalted207 visions, and too glorious hopes one turns with a certain sense of relief to this quiet, strong, practical man, and understands why the people, whose instinct in judging the character of their rulers seldom betrays them in the long run, specially14 acclaimed208 Turgot as a friend.
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1
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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dole
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| n.救济，（失业）救济金；vt.（out）发放，发给 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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primate
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| n.灵长类（目）动物，首席主教；adj.首要的 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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quenching
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| 淬火，熄 | |
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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countenanced
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| v.支持，赞同，批准( countenance的过去式 ) | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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32
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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34
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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incentives
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| 激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机 | |
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economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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44
atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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45
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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47
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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48
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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49
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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50
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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51
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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52
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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53
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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54
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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55
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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56
subsisted
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
subsist
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| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
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58
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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59
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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60
pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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61
perquisites
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| n.（工资以外的）财务补贴( perquisite的名词复数 )；额外收入；（随职位而得到的）好处；利益 | |
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62
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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63
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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64
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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65
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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66
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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67
scourged
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| 鞭打( scourge的过去式和过去分词 )； 惩罚，压迫 | |
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68
indictment
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| n.起诉；诉状 | |
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69
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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70
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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71
quota
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| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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72
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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73
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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74
levied
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| 征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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75
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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76
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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78
tithes
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| n.（宗教捐税）什一税，什一的教区税，小部分( tithe的名词复数 ) | |
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taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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80
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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81
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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82
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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83
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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84
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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85
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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86
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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87
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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88
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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89
prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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90
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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91
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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93
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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94
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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95
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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96
revoked
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| adj.[法]取消的v.撤销，取消，废除( revoke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
devours
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| 吞没( devour的第三人称单数 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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exaction
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| n.强求，强征；杂税 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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101
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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102
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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103
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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104
evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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105
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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107
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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109
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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110
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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111
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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112
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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113
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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114
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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115
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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116
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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117
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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118
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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119
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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120
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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121
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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122
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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123
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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124
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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125
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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126
lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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127
withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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128
extort
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| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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129
levy
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| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
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130
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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131
accustoming
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| v.（使）习惯于( accustom的现在分词 ) | |
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132
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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133
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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134
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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135
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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136
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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137
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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138
profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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139
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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140
bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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141
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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142
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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143
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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145
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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146
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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147
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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148
bribes
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| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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149
exemptions
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| n.（义务等的）免除( exemption的名词复数 )；免（税）；（收入中的）免税额 | |
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150
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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151
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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152
revocation
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| n.废止，撤回 | |
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153
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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154
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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156
scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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157
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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158
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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159
deficit
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| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
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160
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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161
dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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163
extirpate
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| v.除尽，灭绝 | |
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164
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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165
mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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166
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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167
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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168
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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169
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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170
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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171
curtail
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| vt.截短，缩短；削减 | |
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172
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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sinecures
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| n.工作清闲但报酬优厚的职位，挂名的好差事( sinecure的名词复数 ) | |
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174
enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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175
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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176
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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177
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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178
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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179
connived
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| v.密谋 ( connive的过去式和过去分词 )；搞阴谋；默许；纵容 | |
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180
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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181
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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182
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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183
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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184
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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185
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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186
emoluments
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| n.报酬，薪水( emolument的名词复数 ) | |
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187
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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188
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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189
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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190
skit
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| n.滑稽短剧；一群 | |
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191
purporting
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的现在分词 ) | |
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192
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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193
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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194
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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195
exultantly
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| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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196
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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197
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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198
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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199
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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200
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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201
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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202
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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203
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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204
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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205
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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206
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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207
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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208
acclaimed
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| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
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