The Curious Ironies in the Career of Louis XVI - Essay Example

What difficulties faced Louis XVI on his accession 1774 was the year when Louis XVI succeeded to the throne of absolute monarchy in France. Being ashy guy aged 20, Louis XVI proved to be a 'simple' King; rather the word would be a simple man. This simplicity caused Louis XVI towards destruction and finally he got decapitated not because of the blame he uphold as a 'treason' but because he was not a tyrant. Historians and authors mentions Louis XVI in the following words: "If he had had strength of will, or a modicum of necessary ruthlessness, he would have escaped his fate and might have spared France years of agony and decades of bloodshed. But Louis nursed a prejudice against violence. Even during his life, when his subjects generally liked him and exempted him from their harsh and bitter sarcasms, Louis XVI did not know how to sell himself to his people" (Padover, 1939, p. viii) The nation cried for a king, and it was given an image of a stout man too shy to play to the galleries. Louis XVI built no bridges between himself and his subjects, and the wonder is that he retained their affections as long as he did. Almost to the very end, Frenchmen were attached to the monarchy, but they demanded something more of the monarch than ritualised inertia. In no way, except intentions, did Louis meet the expectations of his people. This interplay of forces, as expressed by what an aroused nation wanted and a slow moving ruler did not offer. One of the curious ironies in the career of Louis XVI is that his death came to be perhaps more important than his life. From the point of view of the Revolutionary reforms, the king's death was unnecessary because it took place after the Revolution had achieved its program; and from the point of view of French history, the decapitation of Louis XVI was a national tragedy because it tore the country from its traditional moorings and cast it into a sea of violence. Social Isolation One of the major difficulties Louis XVI faced at succession was that he was a young boy devoid of any social contacts. Initially he was frightened at such a responsibility that he was not expecting. Louis XVI as a bewildered boy had never before had to make decisions or take action on his own. Always there had been somebody mastering him father, mother, brother, or wife but now he was king and absolute lord of the realm, and the entire world expected him to rule and command. Yet he did not have the remotest idea of his specific functions, or any knowledge of finance and legislation, or any awareness of the complex problems that waited solution. He knew how to sign papers submitted by ministers and was of course conscious that his signature implied sanction and compelled obedience. But his distrust of all his grandfather's ministers and functionaries was too deep to allow them to remain in office. At court there was no one in whom he had confidence. Yet it was essential that he find one man to whom he could entrust himself and the destinies of the state; such a man could serve as prime minister, as royal tutor, and even as a sort of parent-substitute. But where was the king to find such a mentor He had virtually no contact with prominent men, and some of the persons recommended in his father's list 'Maurepas', for example had not been at court in Louis' lifetime. Immensely worried, Louis consulted the one woman he trusted, his clever and haughty Aunt Adelaide, who was his father's sister and who knew everybody. Together they scanned the late dauphin's list of recommendations until by a process of elimination there remained only Machault and Maurepas, both of them past their allotted span of years. But Madame Adelaide was a pious woman, and when her nephew asked her what she thought of Machault, she replied that the former minister of finance, although honest enough, was a Jansenist and therefore a heretic. Louis, accordingly, decided against him. Thus only Maurepas, equally ancient and presumably equally wise, was left in the field. In this way the king chose a minister who was to shape his reign during his most impressionable years and who was destined to leave a permanent mark on the course of his life (Padover, 1939, p. 55). Financial Problems Louis realised the seriousness of the conflict, that no honest general could ever be liked by the court. Between a minister of finance and a royal court there was bound to be unremitting war, for the duty of the former was to economise so as to avoid state bankruptcy, and the function of the latter was to spend in order to give glamour to the crown. Turgot was worrying himself into ill-health thinking up ways and means of reducing expenditures, especially those of the royal household, which reached the colossal sum of thirty-six million livres a year about one-sixth of the national budget. In the meantime Marie Antoinette, with that recklessness which aroused all France against her, did everything to make Turgot's life miserable by squandering money as if there were no limits to her husband's resources. That Louis did not discourage her may have been due to his feeling of guilt at having failed in his marital duties: it was a way of placating the furies. And Marie Antoinette, who was essentially a decent woman, thoughtlessly surrounded herself with a gang of idlers and gamblers whose greed knew no bounds. Paradoxically enough, it was precisely during the ministry of the economising Turgot that Marie Antoinette developed her most extravagant habits and gave her most magnificent balls. In the Journal of Papillon de la Ferte, the intendant in charge of royal amusements, one reads of balls given by the queen (Louis hardly ever participated) every two weeks in which the gilded plumes alone cost a fortune. "These days," Papillon writes under the date of March 25, 1775, "I have been going over the accounts of the queen's balls. I am much grieved at this monthly expenditure which exceeds 100,000 livres, because of the quantity of gold embroidery which was used for the gowns and the quadrilles" (Padover, 1939, p. 90). Marie Antoinette had never accepted the revolution; she had merely bowed her head and waited for the storm to pass. In the meantime she was laying the foundations of a great counter-revolutionary conspiracy with ramifications extending to every European court. She started out, in the autumn of 1789, by asking the king of Spain for money to help finance an uprising in the country, and ended, in 1791-92, by appealing to the monarchs of Europe to invade France. In general Louis did not discourage his wife. The die-hards did not leave the king alone; they mocked his spinelessness and censured his complaisance. "Will you never dare act by yourself Do not abdicate your authority ignominiously" (Lancaster, 1953, p. 41). But Louis had no means to fight the revolution, even if he were inclined to do so. The army was no longer loyal to him, and the National Guard was the creation of the people. Nor was there enough money in the treasury to finance a counter-revolution; even the National Assembly had difficulty collecting taxes. Louis also felt that force was no answer to grievances; the nation was on the march, it demanded certain rights and was getting them, too. Despite Marie Antoinette, the king thought it safest to go along with the revolution, work with the people and offer his cooperation. On February 4, 1790, he suddenly appeared before the Assembly and in an extraordinary speech declared himself the leader of the revolution. Paris and France, all Europe, rocked with the sensation. One staunch aristocrat angrily broke his sword in the Assembly, crying that the king had broken his scepter. That winter and spring Louis was the hero of the nation. Monuments were erected and medals struck in his honour. Lyons took up a collection for a statue of the king with the inscription, "Restorer of French Liberty." A similar monument in Marseilles was to bear the words, "Benefactor of his Subjects." The city of Paris struck a medaille patriotique which showed the head of Louis XVI surmounted by an invocation, "Long live for ever the best of kings"; underneath was an eloquent tribute "Restorer of French Liberty and the true Friend of his People" (Padover, 1939, p. 198). Louis liked his two talented ministers and signed the decrees they submitted, including such acts as the freeing of many prisoners in the Bastille, amelioration of the treatment of prison inmates, and the abolition of the penal regulations against the Huguenots. But the king, as Maurepas had warned Turgot, did not possess the strength of character to resist the intrigues of the court, and the violently unpopular comptroller-general did nothing to help the situation. Instead of placating opponents and winning adherents, the inflexible minister pursued his straight path of economic legislation and financial economising, paying attention to neither imprecation from the Right nor the curses from the Left (the price of bread being still high). He made enemies by the hundred, not wilfully but thoughtlessly. Taxes Collection Problem This may have been Gallic irony, for 'Abbe Terray' the finance controller did not know much about finances. The net impression Louis gained from the dismal figures was that taxes were too high, governmental income too low, and that economy was a crying need. However, Louis attended meetings for the purpose of collection of taxes which was to discuss the reclassification of land holdings necessitated by the taille reform. The villages under Louis era were governed by an oligarchy of tenant farmers and professionals. At the end of the year 1786 royal invitations went out to twelve dozen Notables, summoning them to appear at Versailles in the latter part of January, 1787, which aimed in order to communicate views concerning the alleviation of my people. Among the round gross of invited Notables were seven archbishops, seven bishops, seven marshals, ten dukes, thirteen counts, six marquises, twelve councillors, thirty-eight magistrates, twelve provincial deputies, twenty-five municipal officers. The common working people were however not invited. The Notables were to meet in the Grand Trianon at Versailles (a palace which Louis XIV had built for his mistress Maintenon and where Louis XV entertained his armies) and were informed to be prepared to discuss the following: 1) Reform of various laws Form for the promulgation of edicts 2) The administration of civil and criminal justice 3) The administration of finances 4) The national assets and liabilities 5) The management of the domains and the gabelles (salt tax) 6) A territorial tax 7) Customs and excise barriers 8) Provincial assemblies 9)Abolition of mortmain 10) Civil status of the Protestants and 11) A permanent loan fund (Padover, 1939, p. 133). However, tax collectors were free to maintain tax quota and allocate between the households, collectively owned property required policing. Louis had allowed them to take decisions regarding debts and loans, running repairs to the physical fabric of the village (walls, roads, pathways, drinking fountains, water troughs, church bells, etc.). 'Agendas', confronted by Louis embraced both the identification of deficiencies rooted in the structures of the old regime and the identification of possibilities inherent in the embryonic structures of the new. (Jones, 2003, p. 86) Payment of Interest and debts If it had not been for the pressure of money, or rather the lack of it, things might have gone on drifting indefinitely, possibly until Louis XVI had reached old age. But the deficit grew, from a hundred to a hundred and twenty million livres annually, and the national debt assumed Alpine proportions. During the five years of his ministry, Calonne was said to have piled up a debt of nine hundred million livres, much of it devoured by the court. In 1786 the national debt stood at the colossal figure of from four to five billion livres which, at a rough estimate, may be compared to some forty or fifty billion dollars in modern purchasing value. France, to be sure, was the richest country, in resources and industry, on the Continent, but no nation could forever live under such a load, particularly since the people got no compensations for the burden they bore. Louis was immensely worried-nothing upset him so much as debts and the payment of interest but indecision together with a sense of honour kept him from ending hostilities until 1782, when the Americans made separate peace with England. It was not, in the code of international ethics, a 'gentlemanly' thing to do, but Louis was not angry at his selfish allies. In September, 1783, Louis also made peace with England. "My joy," he informed Joseph II, "is most keen" (Lancaster, 1953, p. 87). France had pined absolutely nothing except the independence of the United States of America. Apart from the vast cost of keeping the navy and the army on a war footing, Louis XVI had given America the following sums in cash: 1775-1778 - 3,000,000 livres 1779 - 1,000,000 1780 - 4,000,000 1781 - 4,000,000 1782 - 6,000,000 Apart from this sum of 18,000,000 livres in cash, the United States wanted to borrow another 25,000,000 to maintain an army of thirty-two thousand, but even Franklin had to admit that the resources of France were limited. The total cost of the war to France amounted to about a billion livres, and it drained the French treasury beyond recovery. From 1782 on the financial and political life of France slid toward the abyss with increasing speed. Thus, in a direct sense, the financing of one great revolution on the part of an absolute monarch led to another, a much greater one. It was not long before the truth of this dawned upon the throne. In 1789, when the Bastille was already a heap of yellow-stoned ruins, Marie Antoinette said bitterly, "Today we pay dearly for our infatuation and enthusiasm for the American war." (Padover, 1939, p. 116) The most urgent demand from Louis while he succeeded and on which the nation was virtually unanimous, was a reduction in the tax burden, which caused real want among the poor and which hampered business. In the provinces the great mass of the peasants, though materially better off than they had been a century earlier, yearned for more land and sullenly eyed the plethora of acres that belonged to the barons and the bishops. In the cities there was deep and often forcibly articulate resentment of royal wastefulness, and governmental inefficiency: intercity trade was hamstrung by a thousand untouchable 'privileges' and senseless regulations which dated back to the middle ages. But what most galled the proud city-folk, both businessmen and artisans, was that the fine-feathered ladies and high-born gentlemen lived in idle luxury on the taxes extorted from the working people and that those wastrels also enjoyed all political privileges and social immunities. Throne, noblesse, and clergy had, between them, a monopoly of rights, offices, privileges, prerogatives, and powers. To the bourgeoisie, better educated and more skilled than the aristocracy and clergy, this situation was becoming insupportable. (Padover, 1939, p. 69) Unable to carry through economies, Brienne followed the path beaten by numerous predecessors that of imposing new taxes. But the day of such arbitrary impositions had passed. The Parliament of Paris, which exercised the functions of a supreme court, refused to register the tax laws, on the ground that they were invalid without the consent of the nation. Let the Estates-General, that is to say a congress representing the various classes, be assembled and vote upon taxes so argued the Parliament of Paris. The session of the Parliament was marked by violent words. Louis' brother Artois, speaking for the crown, cried that the English, whose fashions everybody imitated, also had the kind of tax that the government proposed. To which one Robert St. Vincent, whose mordant wit had earned him the nickname According to Robert le Diable, flashed back, "Monseigneur you should recall that they have dethroned seven of their kings and cut off the head of the eighth" (Lancaster, 1953, p. 32). Louis might have continued to ignore the turmoil had not the financial situation been growing really desperate. There was no money in the treasury, and no new taxes could be imposed since the Parliament of Paris had refused to 'register' the edicts. Even if the tax decrees were issued arbitrarily, it was certain that, in the inflamed state of public opinion, collecting the taxes would be impossibility. But the treasury was so depleted that, as Mercy confidentially reported to Vienna, "from day to day they do not know how to meet the slightest expenses." A loan was imperative, but confidence in the government was so shaken that the cautious bankers would advance no more money without the consent of Parliament. So Brienne, the ailing and broken archbishop who believed he would succeed where Turgot had failed, persuaded Louis to confess himself beaten and recall the exiled Parliament. It was a terrific humiliation to the king personally and a crashing blow to the monarchy, but Louis saw no choice (Padover, 1939, p. 143). Louis XVI, entered the throne and conquered by the title "Restorer of French Liberty", there was a time when people started adoring him and then he was blamed as 'betrayer'. It was all what the French Royalist decided about the French monarchy (Doyle, 2000). References Doyle William, (2000) "The Execution of Louis XVI and the End of the French Monarchy" In: History Review. p: 21. Jones Peter, (2003) Liberty and Locality in Revolutionary France: Six Villages Compared, 1760- 1820: Cambridge University Press: New York. Lancaster H. Carrington, (1953) French Tragedy in the Reign of Louis XVI: And the Early Years of the French Revolution, 1774-1792: Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore, MD. Padover K. Saul, (1939) The Life and Death of Louis XVI: D. Appleton-Century: New York. Read More