BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ments. Standing as she did in the forefront of civilization, boasting the most brilliant philosophers and men of letters in Europe, her life was throttled by a system of government that was daily becoming more inadequate to the demands of the time.
Notable, indeed, were the differences between the government of France and that of England. The centralizing policy of Louis XIV had gradually brought France under a system of administration that deprived the provinces of political power and made the king's will supreme.[1] A powerful minister might relieve the king of the burden of multiplied administrative detail, and even usurp authority, but in effect the king was responsible. Yet, though nominally absolute, he was in practice restrained by a host of precedents and usages, surviving from the days of feudalism.
This centralized authority was in many particulars sadly inefficient and could not be bettered without a radical reform from top to bottom. The regulation of the finances was subject to continual alteration, but the sporadic change resulted chiefly in making administration more difficult. No head of government, however honest his intentions, could bring harmony and justice out of the tangled confusion of laws that had accumulated in France. Bureaucratic and cumbrous in its machinery, the government was at the same time lavish and niggardly. It poured out money like water at Versailles and often begrudged the most necessary expenditures in the provinces. Between 1763 and 1789 the national debt enormously increased. Dishonesty in handling public money was common. Too often, not merit but favor brought advancement.
Moreover, the administration of government was meddlesome in the extreme and constantly interfering in the smallest matters. This officiousness was the more exasperating because apparently irrational and, in any case, not applied to all classes alike. Under the old régime France was doubtless in many respects a paradise, but only for the chosen few.[2]
11
- ↑ The place that the king held in the everyday thought of the people is well illustrated in the following contemporary comment: "The most inconsiderable circumstance which relates to the monarch is of importance: Whether he eat much or little at dinner; the coat he wears, the horse on which he rides, all afford matter of conversation in the various societies of Paris, and are the most agreeable subjects of epistolary correspondence with their friends in the provinces." Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 20.
- ↑ "Everything in this kingdom is arranged for the accommodation of the rich and the powerful … little or no regard is paid to the comfort of citizens of an inferior station." Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 16.
