The Eve of the French Revolution | Page 6

of influence, in Paris
or Versailles. Yet their opportunities for doing good or harm were
almost unlimited. Their executive command was nearly uncontrolled;
for where there were no provincial estates, the inhabitants could not
send a petition to the king except through the hands of the intendant,
and any complaint against that officer was referred to himself for an
answer.[Footnote: For the intendants, see Necker, _De l'administration_,
ii. 469, iii. 379. Ibid., _Mémoire au roi sur l'établissement des
administrations provinciales_, passim. De Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales_, 29. Mercier, Tableau de Paris, ix. 85. The official title
of the intendant was _commissaire départi_.]
The intendants were represented in their provinces by subordinate

officers called sub-delegates, each one of whom ruled his petty district
or _élection_. These men were generally local lawyers or magistrates.
Their pay was small, they had no hope of advancement, and they were
under great temptation to use their extensive powers in a corrupt and
oppressive manner.[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales_, 42, etc.]
Beside the intendant, we find in every province a royal governor. The
powers of this official had gradually waned before those of his rival. He
was always a great lord, drawing a great salary and maintaining great
state, but doing little service, and really of far less importance to the
province than the new man. He was a survival of the old feudal
government, superseded by the centralized monarchy of which the
intendant was the representative.[Footnote: The _generalité_ governed
by the intendant, and the province to which the royal governor was
appointed, were not always coterminous.]

CHAPTER II.
LOUIS XVI. AND HIS COURT.
A centralized government, when it is well managed and carefully
watched from above, may reach a degree of efficiency and quickness of
action which a government of distributed local powers cannot hope to
equal. But if a strong central government become disorganized, if
inefficiency, or idleness, or, above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling
place in it, the whole governing body is diseased. The honest men who
may find themselves involved in any inferior part of the administration
will either fall into discouraged acquiescence, or break their hearts and
ruin their fortunes in hopeless revolt. Nothing but long years of untiring
effort and inflexible will on the part of the ruler, with power to change
his agents at his discretion, can restore order and honesty.
There is no doubt that the French administrative body at the time when
Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and self-seeking. In the
management of the finances and of the army, illegitimate profits were

made. But this was not the worst evil from which the public service
was suffering. France was in fact governed by what in modern times is
called "a ring." The members of such an organization pretend to serve
the sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do so; but
their rewards are determined by intrigue and favor, and are entirely
disproportionate to their services. They generally prefer jobbery to
direct stealing, and will spend a million of the state's money in a
needless undertaking, in order to divert a few thousands into their own
pockets.
They hold together against all the world, while trying to circumvent
each other. Such a ring in old France was the court. By such a ring will
every country be governed, where the sovereign who possesses the
political power is weak in moral character or careless of the public
interest; whether that sovereign be a monarch, a chamber, or the mass
of the people.[Footnote: "Quand, dans un royaume, il y a plus
d'avantage à faire sa cour qu'à faire son devoir, tout est perdu."
Montesquieu, vii. 176, (_Pensées diverses_.)]
Louis XVI., king of France and of Navarre, was more dull than stupid,
and weaker in will than in intellect. In him the hobbledehoy period had
been unusually prolonged, and strangers at court were astonished to see
a prince of nineteen years of age running after a footman to tickle him
while his hands were full of dirty clothes.[Footnote: Swinburne, i. 11.]
The clumsy youth grew up into a shy and awkward man, unable to find
at will those accents of gracious politeness which are most useful to the
great. Yet people who had been struck at first only with his
awkwardness were sometimes astonished to find in him a certain
amount of education, a memory for facts, and a reasonable
judgment.[Footnote: Campan, ii. 231. Bertrand de Moleville, Histoire, i.
Introd.; _Mémoires_, i. 221.] Among his predecessors he had set
himself Henry IV. as a model, probably without any very accurate idea
of the character of that monarch; and he had fully determined he would
do what in him lay to make his people happy. He was, moreover,
thoroughly conscientious, and had a high sense of