the paper on which was stamped her | difficulties the controller-general had to counterfeit presentment as readily as if it were gold. But the French were far too independent and sagacious to confide blindly in the credit of the government and accept a wholesale issue of worthless bank - notes in lieu of money. The losses entailed by the financial operations of Law had taught the people to be on their guard. Ready money was essential to the controllergeneral to meet his liabilities, and as the royal exchequer was in a chronic state of emptiness, whilst the need of money was imperative, the king sought to supplement the proceeds of the taxes by sending his plate to the mint, an example which was followed by the nobility, who were ever anxious to demonstrate their loyalty to the crown. In this manner countless artistic treas-is true, a floating debt in the shape of ures were lost to posterity. contend with were further increased by the arrangement under which all the public moneys were paid into the Cours des Comptes, thirteen courts situated in the different provinces and in Paris. These courts were supposed to control the collection of the taxes, but they were subject to no general supervision, and each kept its accounts after its own fashion. An abstract of these accounts had to be sent periodically to Paris, but the manner in which they were kep: was so complicated and confusing that the superior court could exercise no effectual check upon them, and could obtain no clear evidence of the total amounts of the receipts and expenditure. Moreover, the floating debt had not yet been originated. There was, it The financial confusion was aggravated by the entire unpreparedness of the treasury to meet unforeseen demands which were constantly cropping up, and by the absence of any systematic attempt to make provision for the liabilities of the State. The only object the controllers-general ever had in administering the finances was to tide over the embarrassments of the hour; they lived from hand to mouth, regardless of the ultimate consequences of that policy. Taxes were imposed and collected; extraordinary receipts were realized when they were required; but no preliminary estimate was ever made of the resources of the revenue. The same uncertainty prevailed with regard to the expenditure. The expenditure of the current year was the only guide followed in estimating that of the ensuing one. There was no such thing as the division of the public revenue into financial years; no definite period was fixed for carrying out the estimate of each separate budget, and the collection of the taxes often remained in arrear for two or three years. Neither Turgot nor his successors were able to deal with the bewildering condition of the public accounts, which required the summary procedure of the Revolution to bring about its amendment. The bills which the minister drew whenever he had any pressing engagements to meet, and had no available money for the purpose. But, like all the other financial arrangements of the State, this was carried out in the most haphazard manner. The bills were negotiated with bankers or State contractors, the returns of some tax or taxes for the ensuing year being given as security. But, as has been already said, the taxes were not necessarily collected within the period named for the purpose, so that when the bills fell due there was no money to take them up, and they had to be renewed sometimes again and again, each fresh renewal of course entailing a fresh commission. Colbert originated this system of forestalling the receipts of the revenue. Thenceforward it developed into a regular practice, and the amount so forestalled increased from year to year. Thus we find that in 1770 the sum forestalled was only 150,000,000 livres, whereas in 1776 it had mounted up to 800,000,000, and in 1781 to 1,600,000,000.1 The manner in which the secret service money was disbursed introduced another element of irregularity into the 1 There were various kinds of livres under the ancient monarchy, and the value of the coin fluc tuated, but about the beginning of the eighteenth century it became equivalent to a franc. management of the public accounts, | relatively in the same position now, we average of 3,2417. per annum. The income of a counsel about the middle of the last century who had exceptional advantages is disclosed by the fee-book of Mr. Charles Yorke, the son of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, and afterwards chancellor himself. In his first year his practice only brought him in 1217.; but it increased so that when he was ten years at the bar his professional income was nearly 2,5001.2 The king would have done well had he followed the example of Madame de In 1769, when the Abbé Terray was Pompadour in the matter of keeping controller-general, the condition of the his accounts, whose bookkeeping, at finances had become desperate. He any rate, was of a pattern worthy of was a man of much ability, but utterly imitation. Prodigal as this well-abused devoid of character, and wholly unscrulady was, every sou she received or paid pulous as a minister. On the 18th of away during the nineteen years of her February of that year, finding it imposfavor was duly entered in her books. sible to stretch the revenue so as to After her death it was found that in that meet the heavy liabilities of the State, period she had cost France the sum of he issued a decree which was equiva36,327,268 livres 12 sous 6 deniers. lent to proclaiming national bankruptcy. The average revenue of the crown at By this decree he suspended for an that time from all sources was about indefinite period the payment of drafts 370,000,000 livres a year; so that an to the value of about 200,000,000 livres, approximate idea of the scale on which which had been drawn upon the the king's munificence was based can receiver-general of the taxes by the be obtained from the money he lav- finance minister, in anticipation of the ished on the leading favorite. revenue receipts of the current year, a In considering these sums it is neces-breach of faith that spread ruin among sary to take into account the alteration in the value of money, brought about by the altered conditions of life then and now. Taking, for instance, the incomes of prominent professional men in those days, and comparing them with what we know to be the incomes of men the creditors of the State, who belonged principally to the bourgeois class, while it dealt a fatal blow at the financial credit of the government. As late as the time of Necker's fall, in 1781, eighty millions 1 About 2,000l. 2 Foss's Judges of England. versation of the finances worth of these drafts still remained un- | which, though dedicated to all the paid. In 1771 the Abbé Terray went a glories of France, is nevertheless fast step further, and promulgated a decree falling to decay because of the expense reducing the interest on the perpetual its maintenance would entail. It is annuities purchased from the State by almost impossible for us to conceive one-fifteenth, and the life annuities by what Louis the Fourteenth and his one-tenth. He contended that this was successor deemed to be the obligatory a legitimate operation, on the ground household of the king of France, who that as the value of the principal of lived like an Oriental potentate, sethe sums invested to produce these an- cluded from the inquisitive and critical nuities had been diminished-by the eye of the populace of Paris, but who, disgraceful mismanagement and mal- at the same time, wished to dazzle his it was only subjects, as well as royal visitors from fair that the interest should be reduced all parts of the world, by the pomp of in proportion; his argument in effect the throne. It must be admitted that being that, as the owners of these annu- to have reduced that expenditure and ities had already been defrauded of a display, even could it have been done, portion of their principal, it was only would have diminished the prestige of equitable that they should suffer a pro- the monarchy. The king was the sole portionate loss of interest. In recent fountain of honor and emolument; years we have witnessed, not only in every advancement, every favor, deEngland, but on the Continent as well, pended on him alone. "The object of conversions of stocks by which the in- the greatest personages of both sexes," terest has been diminished. But these says M. Taine, "of laymen and clergyconversions only take place when the men, the chief object of their lives was stock is above par, and the holders of to be at every hour of the day under them have no reason to complain, as the eyes of the sovereign, and within they have the option of either getting reach of his voice." “I would prefer back their money at par or of accepting dying to being two months without seethe new stock at the reduced rate of ing the king," wrote Marshal Richelieu interest. That Louis the Fifteenth to Madame de Maintenon. Vanity and was not unaware of the state of public self-interest continued this tradition opinion produced by Terray's act of under Louis the Fifteenth, and cour repudiation may be gathered from the tiers eighty years of age were known words he used on his deathbed; but to have passed forty-five years of their though he then expressed repentance lives waiting in the ante-rooms of the for the scandal his private life had oc- king, the princes, or the ministers. It casioned to his subjects, he added that was the aim of the life of noblemen to to God alone did he owe any account of hold even the humblest court appointhis conduct as a ruler. He may have ment, and to lodge in the meanest garbeen conscious of his vices, but he ret of Versailles. The many sacrifices made as little effort to reform them as the nobility had made in the wars, and he did to conciliate public opinion in the ruinous condition of the finances, financial matters, as he might have had so seriously diminished their wealth, done by reducing the heaviest item of that every minister and official looked his expenditure, a reduction which to the favor and bounty of the king for would have been a more effectual and his advancement. In those days, civil practical piece of economy than sending and military service were not rendered his plate to the mint. This item was to the country, but to the king, on his household. Any visitor to Versailles whom all public officials were dependent may form some estimate of the expense for their livelihood. But he, in his of keeping up an establishment in that turn, depended upon them for their vast palace, which, despite the plunder-services, and he could not have freed ing it underwent during the Revolution, himself from the bonds in which he is still a monument of national art, was thus held without endangering the 66 "Be safety of the crown. The result of | pockets suffered in consequence, rethis mutual dependence on each other venged themselves by making fun of was that the crown and its resources the king's parsimony and turning him were being strangled in the tentacles into ridicule. Nevertheless, Turgot's of a vast octopus, from which heroic retrenchments amounted to 5,000,000 measures alone could have liberated | livres, an attempt at economy which them. The costly pomp which Louis contributed to bring about his disgrace. the Fourteenth had instituted was "You are in too great a hurry,' "said continued by Louis the Fifteenth, Malesherbes to him; why do you oblivious of the progress of time and want to do so much at once?" civilization, and unmindful that the cause,' ," answered Turgot sadly, "you glamour that it was sought to preserve forget that in our family we die of gout around the throne meant the ruin of at the age of fifty." In fact, Turgot the people. died seven years later, at the age of Of the magnitude, splendor, and cost | fifty-four. Necker was more fortunate of that royal establishment we can than Turgot, but what he saved with form a notion from the fact that the one hand he lost with the other. Court population of Paris at that time was intrigue was too strong for him, and only 600,000, whereas the household his comparatively trifling household reconsisted of 6,000 persons, with stables forms were counterbalanced by the containing 2,000 horses and 300 char- costliness of the court favorites. Maiots; three distinct hunting and six dame de Polignac, for instance, received sporting establishments, together with on the same day 400,000 livres to pay an army of 1,500 lackeys, whose liveries her debts, and a marriage portion for alone cost 540,000 livres a year. There her daughter of 800,000 livres. were seventy-five officers connected with the king's chapel alone, and forty-eight physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, attached to his person. D'Argenson, writing in 1751, says: "It is asserted that there are 4,000 horses in the king's household, and that this year alone his single person cost 68,000,000 livres, or one-quarter of the public revenue." As late as 1780, 383 men and 133 boys were employed for the king's table, which cost 2,177,771 livres, together with 390,000 livres for those of the king's aunts, and 1,000,000 for his sisters-in-law, bringing the total charge for the royal tables alone up to 3,660,941 livres per annum. At the death of Louis the Fifteenth the annual expenditure of the king amounted to onetwelfth of the whole revenue of the State; and if we take into account the households of the various members of the royal family which were supported by the State, as well as the cost of the nine or ten thousand household troops, the outlay under this head amounted to one-eighth of the entire revenue. Louis the Sixteenth effected various reforms in the household, but with the result that the court dignitaries, whose But the household was not the only item in the expenditure of the king that drained the public purse. Perhaps one of the most indefensible of the many financial abuses of the eighteenth century was the pension list, which even Louis the Sixteenth, economical and ever ready as he was to act upon the advice of his ministers, was unable to restrict. These pensions nominally awarded out of the privy purse for public services were in reality given indiscriminately to private favorites and unworthy persons. That every minister on his resignation should receive a pension of 50,000 livres was justifiable, as well, perhaps, as that his widow should receive 30,000 livres, but that each of his daughters should get from 4,000 to 10,000 livres a year made the system a scandal. In the same way other high dignitaries of State, and even in the higher magisterial offices, obtained hereditary pensions; an example of which is afforded by the case of a Mlle. de Maulde, who, as late as 1790, secured a pension of 4,000 livres, when only fourteen years of age. There was Madame du Deffand, the friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole, who, in re 1763, got a pension of 6,000 livres from Louis the Fifteenth must have been the king because to use her own words cast in a heroic mould to have been -her aunt, the Duchesse de Luynes, able to free himself from this incubus. had been a friend of Marie Leczinska. But he was not a hero, nor was the age Numerous examples of the same kind in which he lived a heroic age. Still, might be quoted. Madame de Lam- selfish and indolent as he undoubtedly balle was granted a pension of 40,000 was, he had sufficient penetration to livres, and Madame d'Andlau, aunt of perceive the extent to which he was Madame de Polignac, obtained a pen- being preyed upon by the vultures of his sion of 6,000 livres, though she had court. It is recorded that when drivbeen exiled from court for a grave ing one day with the Duc de Choiseul, dereliction of duty. Later on, when he turned to him, and asked, "What do the secrets of the administration were you think was the cost of the carriage disclosed by the Revolution, it was we are sitting in? The minister, found that the family of Polignac re- having pondered a minute, replied that ceived pensions, the greater part hered- | he thought he could buy one the same itary, amounting to 700,000 livres a as it in all respects for from 5,000 to year; and that gifts to the value of 6,000 livres; but he added that, as the about 2,000,000 livres were given to the king must pay en roi, and seldom in Noailles family alone. In 1774 the ready money, it might have cost him Abbé Vermont wrote to Maria Theresa 8,000 livres. "You are far from the that "by an immemorial custom of the right figure," rejoined the king, "for French court, three fourths of the this carriage cost me 30,000 livres !" places of honor and pensions were Choiseul some days afterwards given not in return for services, but minded the king of this conversathrough motives of favoritism. Such tion, and said that if he would support claims were based formerly on birth him he would redress the abuses of and connections, but lately they have the royal expenditure. "My friend,” had no other foundation than in in- answered the king, "the robberies in trigue." Even the finance ministers of my house are on a colossal scale; Louis the Fifteenth appreciated to but it is impossible to stop them, as some extent the absurdity of the pen- too many people, especially, too many sion system, and at one time an effort influential people, are interested in was made to reduce the then existing pensions. Under this reform the pension awarded to Madame du Deffand was cut down to 4,800 livres, whereupon this lady remonstrated with the minister. The sincerity with which he had entered upon this economy was then shown by his reply, that although it was true that the old pensions must be reduced, there was no reason why new ones should not be granted, and forthwith Madame du Deffand had her loss made good by the granting to her of a new pension. An idea of the drain these pensions constituted upon the exchequer can be gathered from the following figures. In 1763 the pensions granted by the king amounted to 8,600,000 livres, in 1774 to 10,400,000, in 1776 to 16,500,000, and in 1781, the year of Necker's dismissal, to 23,814,988 livres. their continuance. My ministers have always begun by attempting to introduce something like order into my affairs, but they have been frightened to proceed, and abandoned the task in despair. Cardinal Fleury was powerful; he was master of France; but he died without carrying out any of the plans he had formed. Believe me, it is better not to trouble yourself, and to let ineradicable vices alone." This sketch of the financial condition and administration of France during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, incomplete as it necessarily is, may still serve to convey an adequate impression of the herculean character of the task with which Louis the Sixteenth found himself confronted. France not being a homogeneous country, but composed of a group of autonomous provinces, with conflicting institutions and interests, |