Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/629

STATS OP FRANCE.] 68. mankind, subverting many ideas, filled with noble, often impracticable sentiments, and leaving the impression of change and uncertainty even in those subjects which seemed least open to difficulty. He appealed to men s conscience and sense of right against the ruling vices and selfish im moralities of the day ; and men, seeing these glaring evils sanctioned by the presence of the priesthood, if not by its participation, warmly adopted the new ideas, and desired a revolution in morals as much as in religion or politics. It was the outcry of nature against the infinite falsenesses of a complex and corrupt society. The great Encyclopedic was managed chiefly by D Alembert and Diderot ; the former traced its ground plan, and wrote the preface and some mathematical treatises, while the latter supervised it, and acted as the chief editor. The general tendency of the work was to attack religion, and to substitute in its place the conclusions of modern science : with D Alembert and Diderot worked Helvetius the materialist, Holbach, Grimm, Raynal, and Condorcet, of whom the last represents that passion for man, that warmth of heart and sentiment, which draws him somewhat near to Rousseau. Among the great writers of the time must not be omitted the harmonious Buffon, who laid before his countrymen a splendid sketch of the material world and of the creatures that inhabit it. It is the work of a poet rather than of a scientific student : we find a cosmogony, an eloquent picture of man and man s fellow-dwellers on the globe, if written with truthfulness or not we need not ask ; at any rate, with skill and power he enlarges men s horizon. He too can praise God in his works, and in so doing can leave the established beliefs on one side. In all the literature of the age we see new grounds for speculation on every stage : theology, letters, sciences, natural history, politics, constitutional ideas, morality, all alike are grappled with by writers who shake themselves clear of existing trammels. Rejoicing in a new freedom, they familiarize the younger generation of France with revolutionary ideas in every line, and render the coming explosion more complete and more permanent than any movement that the world has seen since the first preaching of the gospel to mankind. At the close of the Seven Years War the Society of Jesus was on its trial throughout Europe. The Order had changed its ground; it had long ruled in kings courts, and was paying the price of the means by which it had gained ascen dency therein; it had become both rich and troublesome to society. And the general tendencies of the times were against it ; above all, it incurred the deadly hostility of those enlightened ministers who, in almost every court of Europe, were directing the new-born energies of states. Such men as Pombal in Portugal or Choiseul in France could not but resist Jesuit influences which clashed with their own, whether these regarded the interests of courts or the welfare of peoples. In 1762 the parliament of Paris, influenced largely by Madame de Pompadour, took their affairs, which had become secular enough, into its considera tion, and decreed that the Order should be abolished. Louis XV, after some hesitation, confirmed their decision in 1764, and the Order was expelled from France. It is significant of the general movement of the period that the other Catholic powers speedily did the same, until in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. (Gangauelli) finally suppressed the Order. On the death of Madame de Pompadour in 1764, Choi- seul still continued to hold the chief direction of affairs. His ministry, besides his belated foreign policy of the pacte de famille, was noted for more than one solid reform ; he reorganized the army, instituted the cole militaire, saw to the progress, so far as he could, of the navy, encouraged colonization, and in 1768 united Corsica to France. He represented the philosophic spirit at court, in antagonism 593 to the Jesuit party, and the favour of Madame de Pompa- 1770-74. dour more than neutralized the king s dislike to him, for Louis XV. was very jealous of any interference with the one branch of government in which ho took interest, foreign affairs ; and in these Choiseul was ambitious, if not very successful. So things went on till 1770, when a new mis tress made the ground untenable for him. The low-born beauty, Madame du Barry, was the tool of all intriguers, Madame and gained unbounded influence over the worn-out king. Ju Barry. Choiseul and the Jansenists, who had enjoyed a brief tran quillity after the fall of the Jesuits, now went out of favour ; the parliaments, which Madame de Pompadour had used and The Par- favoured, were exiled, and in their stead came a new system lament of administration of law. The old purchase system, which M;lu " gave stability to the parliaments, and dated from early Bour- ^ eo bon times, was swept away, and royal nominees were set to fulfiljthe functions of the parliaments. It was thought that the change from officials by purchase to officials by royal grace would be welcome. France, however, distrusted them, and said that the " gratuitous justice " so much vaunted, meant nothing but injustice guided by gratuities. Louis XV. lived long enough to see the first partition of Parti- Poland (1772), that great blow to French influences in the tion of north ; nor could his interference hinder the signature of the peace of Kainardji in 1774, by which Russia, supported by England, got hold of the Black Sea shores. His effort to seize the Netherlands, as a counterpoise to these rapid additions to the strength of the northern powers, was a complete failure. In the same year 1774 Louis XV. died, died as he had Death of lived, in flagrant vice. His reign of nearly fifty years Louis had been a continual misfortune for France. During the xv> period she is brilliant only in her literature, and even there we are conscious of something unwholesome and unnatural. Some years before this the dauphin had died, leaving a The chur- young son, Louis, who was married in 1770 to Marie An- acterof toinette, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. This young ^" s couple, handsome and well-meaning, now came to the throne in 1774, inheritors of the terrible destiny which Louis XV. had prepared for his grandchildren. He, cold and selfish, had foreseen the coming tempest; but "it will last my time," he said, and cared no more about it ; he felt as little for his grandson as for his country. In the midst of the scandals of the court Louis XVI. had preserved his purity, and with it a charming simplicity which, while it seemed likely to render the difficulties of his position less, seemed also likely to arouse men s sympathies for him, and find him friends in need. And in later days, when he deserved it less, men, even while they struggled against him, often fondly called him " their good king." He loved his people, as a good despot might, and tried to mitigate their misery in famine-times ; his kindliness, however, was but weak ness his simplicity stupidity ; he was obstinate and yet not firm ; and his good and bad qualities alike made him incapable of grappling with the new phenomena of society which broke on his astonished sight. We find that in the most thrilling moments of his history, his chief anxiety often was how he might get out to his hounds. Marie Antoinette Marie was a very different personage; she had much of her Al jtoi- mother s high spirit ; she was always a foreigner in France. m In the early days of her beauty, when all Frenchmen were inclined to worship chivalrously at her feet, she shocked them by laughing at usages which seemed to them the ordinary course of nature. As time went on it was plainly seen that she came between the king and his tendencies towards reform ; that she formed a court-party of her own, made and unmade ministers with no regard for the feelings of France, and no preferences except for the worse over the better public servants ; that she more than neutralized all the king s economical wishes, and was extravagant and reck- IX. 75