by his Court-retinue; D'Orleans himself, as in duty bound, escorting him, but only to the gate. Which duty done, D'Orleans returns in from the gate; redacts his Protest, in the face of an applauding Parlement, an applauding France; and so—has cut his Court-moorings, shall we say? And will now sail and drift, fast enough, towards Chaos?
Thou foolish D'Orleans; Equality that art to be! Is Royalty grown a mere wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow, mayest alight at pleasure, and peck? Not yet wholly.
Next day, a Lettre-de-Cachet sends D'Orleans to bethink himself in his Chateau of Villers-Cotterets, where, alas, is no Paris with its joyous necessaries of life; no fascinating indispensable Madame de Buffon,—light wife of a great Naturalist much too old for her. Monseigneur, it is said, does nothing but walk distractedly, at Villers-Cotterets; cursing his stars. Versailles itself shall hear penitent wail from him, so hard is his doom. By a second, simultaneous Lettre-de-Cachet, Goody Freteau is hurled into the Stronghold of Ham, amid the Norman marshes; by a third, Sabatier de Cabre into Mont St. Michel, amid the Norman quicksands. As for the Parlement, it must, on summons, travel out to Versailles, with its Register-Book under its arm, to have the Protest biffe (expunged); not without admonition, and even rebuke. A stroke of authority which, one might have hoped, would quiet matters.
Unhappily, no; it is a mere taste of the whip to rearing coursers, which makes them rear worse! When a team of Twenty-five Millions begins rearing, what is Lomenie's whip? The Parlement will nowise acquiesce meekly; and set to register the Protestant Edict, and do its other work, in salutary fear of these three Lettres-de-Cachet. Far from that, it begins questioning Lettres-de-Cachet generally, their legality, endurability; emits dolorous objurgation, petition on petition to have its three Martyrs delivered; cannot, till that be complied with, so much as think of examining the Protestant Edict, but puts it off always 'till this day week.' (Besenval, iii. 309.)
In which objurgatory strain Paris and France joins it, or rather has preceded it; making fearful chorus. And now also the other Parlements, at length opening their mouths, begin to join; some of them, as at Grenoble and at Rennes, with portentous emphasis,—threatening, by way of reprisal, to interdict the very Tax-gatherer. (Weber, i. 266.) "In all former contests," as Malesherbes remarks, "it was the Parlement that excited the Public; but here it is the Public that excites the Parlement."
Chapter 1.3.VII
Internecine
What a France, through these winter months of the year 1787! The very Oeil-de-Boeuf is doleful, uncertain; with a general feeling among the Suppressed, that it were better to be in Turkey. The Wolf-hounds are suppressed, the Bear-hounds, Duke de Coigny, Duke de Polignac: in the Trianon little-heaven, her Majesty, one evening, takes Besenval's arm; asks his candid opinion. The intrepid Besenval,—having, as he hopes, nothing of the sycophant in him,—plainly signifies that, with a Parlement in rebellion, and an Oeil-de-Boeuf in suppression, the King's Crown is in danger;—whereupon, singular to say, her Majesty, as if hurt, changed the subject, et ne me parla plus de rien! (Besenval, iii. 264.)
To whom, indeed, can this poor Queen speak? In need of wise counsel, if ever mortal was; yet beset here only by the hubbub of chaos! Her dwelling-place is so bright to the eye, and confusion and black care darkens it all. Sorrows of the Sovereign, sorrows of the woman, think-coming sorrows environ her more and more. Lamotte, the Necklace-Countess, has in these late months escaped, perhaps been suffered to escape, from the Salpetriere. Vain was the hope that Paris might thereby forget her; and this ever-widening-lie, and heap of lies, subside. The Lamotte, with a V (for Voleuse, Thief) branded on both shoulders, has got to England; and will therefrom emit lie on lie; defiling the highest queenly name: mere distracted lies; (Memoires justificatifs de la Comtesse de Lamotte (London, 1788). Vie de Jeanne de St. Remi, Comtesse de Lamotte, &c. &c. See Diamond Necklace (ut supra).) which, in its present humour, France will greedily believe.
For the rest, it is too clear our Successive Loan is not filling. As indeed, in such circumstances, a Loan registered by expunging of Protests was not the likeliest to fill. Denunciation of Lettres-de-Cachet, of Despotism generally, abates not: the Twelve Parlements are busy; the Twelve hundred Placarders, Balladsingers, Pamphleteers. Paris is what, in figurative speech, they call 'flooded with pamphlets (regorge de brochures);' flooded and eddying again. Hot deluge,—from so many Patriot ready-writers, all at the fervid or boiling point; each ready-writer, now in the hour of eruption, going like an Iceland Geyser! Against which what can a judicious friend Morellet do; a Rivarol, an unruly Linguet (well paid for it),—spouting cold!
Now also, at length, does come discussion of the Protestant Edict: but only for new embroilment; in pamphlet and counter-pamphlet, increasing the madness of men. Not even Orthodoxy, bedrid as she seemed, but will have a hand in this confusion. She, once again in the shape of Abbe Lenfant, 'whom Prelates drive to visit and congratulate,'—raises audible sound from her pulpit-drum. (Lacretelle, iii. 343. Montgaillard, &c.) Or mark how D'Espremenil, who has his own confused way in all things, produces at the right moment in Parlementary harangue, a pocket Crucifix, with the apostrophe: "Will ye crucify him afresh?" Him, O D'Espremenil, without scruple;—considering what poor stuff, of ivory and filigree, he is made of!
To all which add only that poor Brienne has fallen sick; so hard was the tear and wear of his sinful youth, so violent, incessant is this agitation of his foolish old age. Baited, bayed at through so many throats, his Grace, growing consumptive, inflammatory (with humeur de dartre), lies reduced to milk diet; in exasperation, almost in desperation; with 'repose,' precisely the impossible recipe, prescribed as the indispensable. (Besenval, iii. 317.)
On the whole, what can a poor Government do, but once more recoil ineffectual? The King's Treasury is running towards the lees; and Paris 'eddies with a flood of pamphlets.' At all rates, let the latter subside a little! D'Orleans gets back to Raincy, which is nearer Paris and the fair frail Buffon; finally to Paris itself: neither are Freteau and Sabatier banished forever. The Protestant Edict is registered; to the joy of Boissy d'Anglas and good Malesherbes: Successive Loan, all protests expunged or else withdrawn, remains open,—the rather as few or none come to fill it. States-General, for which the Parlement has clamoured, and now the whole Nation clamours, will follow 'in five years,'—if indeed not sooner. O Parlement of Paris, what a clamour was that! "Messieurs," said old d'Ormesson, "you will get States-General, and you will repent it." Like the Horse in the Fable, who, to be avenged of his enemy, applied to the Man. The Man mounted; did swift execution on the enemy; but, unhappily, would not dismount! Instead of five years, let three years pass, and this clamorous Parlement shall have both seen its enemy hurled prostrate, and been itself ridden to foundering (say rather, jugulated for hide and shoes), and lie dead in the ditch.
Under such omens, however, we have reached the spring of 1788. By no path can the King's Government find passage for itself, but is everywhere shamefully flung back. Beleaguered by Twelve rebellious Parlements, which are grown to be the organs of an angry Nation, it can advance nowhither; can accomplish nothing, obtain nothing, not so much as money to subsist on; but must sit there, seemingly, to be eaten up of Deficit.
The measure of the Iniquity, then, of the Falsehood which has been gathering through long centuries, is nearly full? At least, that of the misery is! For the hovels of the Twenty-five Millions, the misery, permeating upwards and forwards, as its law is, has got so far,—to the very Oeil-de-Boeuf of Versailles. Man's hand, in this blind pain, is set against man: not only the low against the higher, but the higher against each other; Provincial Noblesse is bitter against Court Noblesse; Robe against Sword; Rochet against Pen. But against the King's Government who is not bitter? Not even Besenval, in these days. To it all men and bodies of men are become as enemies; it is the centre whereon infinite contentions unite and clash. What new universal vertiginous movement is this; of Institution, social Arrangements, individual Minds, which once worked cooperative; now rolling and grinding in distracted collision? Inevitable: it is the breaking-up of a World-Solecism, worn out at last, down even to bankruptcy of money! And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it. Most natural! For your human Solecism, be it Person or Combination of Persons, is ever, by law of Nature, uneasy; if verging towards bankruptcy, it is even miserable:—and when would the meanest Solecism