Lectures on the French Revolution. Acton John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron

be composed, elected, and conducted. To pronounce on this, Necker caused the Notables to be convoked again, exposed the problem, and desired their opinion. The nobles had been lately active on the side of liberal reforms, and it seemed possible that their reply might relieve him of a dreaded responsibility and prevent a conflict. The Notables gave their advice. They resolved that the Commons should be elected, virtually, by universal suffrage without conditions of eligibility; that the parish priests should be electors and eligible; that the lesser class of nobles should be represented like the greater. They extended the franchise to the unlettered multitude, because the danger which they apprehended came from the middle class, not from the lower. But they voted, by three to one, that each order should be equal in numbers. The Count of Provence, the king's next brother, went with the minority, and voted that the deputies of the Commons should be as numerous as those of the two other orders together. This became the burning question. If the Commons did not predominate, there was no security that the other orders would give way. On the other hand, by the important innovation of admitting the parish clergy, and those whom we should call provincial gentry, a great concession was made to the popular element. The antagonism between the two branches of the clergy, and between the two branches of the noblesse, was greater than that between the inferior portion of each and the Third Estate, and promised a contingent to the liberal cause. It turned out, at the proper time, that the two strongest leaders of the democracy were, one, an ancient noble; the other, a canon of the cathedral of Chartres. The Notables concluded their acceptable labours on December 12. On the 5th the magistrates who formed the parliament of Paris, after solemnly enumerating the great constitutional principles, entreated the king to establish them as the basis of all future legislation. The position of the government was immensely simplified. The walls of the city had fallen, and it was doubtful where any serious resistance would come from.

      Meantime, the agitation in the provinces, and the explosion of pent-up feeling that followed the unlicensed printing of political tracts, showed that public opinion moved faster than that of the two great conservative bodies. It became urgent that the Government should come to an early and resolute decision, and should occupy ground that might be held against the surging democracy. Necker judged that the position would be impregnable if he stood upon the lines drawn by the Notables, and he decided that the Commons should be equal to either order singly, and not jointly to the two. In consultation with a statesmanlike prelate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, he drew up and printed a report, refusing the desired increase. But as he sat anxiously watching the winds and the tide, he began to doubt; and when letters came, warning him that the nobles would be butchered if the decision went in their favour, he took alarm. He said to his friends, "If we do not multiply the Commons by two, they will multiply themselves by ten." When the Archbishop saw him again at Christmas, Necker assured him that the Government was no longer strong enough to resist the popular demand. But he was also determined that the three houses should vote separately, that the Commons should enjoy no advantage from their numbers in any discussion where privilege was at stake, or the interest of classes was not identical. He hoped that the nobles would submit to equal taxation of their own accord, and that he would stand between them and any exorbitant claim of equal political power.

      On December 27 Necker's scheme was adopted by the Council. There was some division of opinion; but the king overruled it, and the queen, who was present, showed, without speaking, that she was there to support the measure. By this momentous act Lewis XVI., without being conscious of its significance, went over to the democracy. He said, in plain terms, to the French people: "Afford me the aid I require, so far as we have a common interest, and for that definite and appropriated assistance you shall have a princely reward. For you shall at once have a constitution of your own making, which shall limit the power of the Crown, leaving untouched the power and the dignity and the property of the upper classes, beyond what is involved in an equal share of taxation." But in effect he said; "Let us combine to deprive the aristocracy of those privileges which are injurious to the Crown, whilst we retain those which are offensive only to the people." It was a tacit compact, of which the terms and limits were not defined; and where one thought of immunities, the other was thinking of oppression. The organisation of society required to be altered and remodelled from end to end to sustain a constitution founded on the principle of liberty. It was no arduous problem to adjust relations between the people and the king. The deeper question was between the people and the aristocracy. Behind a political reform there was a social revolution, for the only liberty that could avail was liberty founded on equality. Malouet, who was at this moment Necker's best adviser, said to him: "You have made the Commons equal in influence to the other orders. Another revolution has to follow, and it is for you to accomplish it – the levelling of onerous privilege." Necker had no ambition of the kind, and he distinctly guarded privilege in all matters but taxation.

      The resolution of the king in Council was received with loud applause; and the public believed that everything they had demanded was now obtained, or was at least within reach. The doubling of the Commons was illusory if they were to have no opportunity of making their numbers tell. The Count of Provence, afterwards Lewis XVIII., had expressly argued that the old States-General were useless because the Third Estate was not suffered to prevail in them. Therefore he urged that the three orders should deliberate and vote as one, and that the Commons should possess the majority. It was universally felt that this was the real meaning of the double representation, and that there was a logic in it which could not be resisted. The actual power vested in the Commons by the great concession exceeded their literal and legal power, and it was accepted and employed accordingly.

      The mode of election was regulated on January 24. There were to be three hundred deputies for the clergy, three hundred for the nobles, six hundred for the Commons. There were to be no restrictions and no exclusions; but whereas the greater personages voted directly, the vote of the lower classes was indirect; and the rule for the Commons was that one hundred primary voters chose an elector. Besides the deputy, there was the deputy's deputy, held in reserve, ready in case of vacancy to take his place. It was on this peculiar device of eventual representatives that the Commons relied, if their numbers had not been doubled. They would have called up their substitutes. The rights and charters of the several provinces were superseded, and all were placed on the same level.

      A more sincere and genuine election has never been held. And on the whole it was orderly. The clergy were uneasy, and the nobles more openly alarmed. But the country in general had confidence in what was coming; and some of the most liberal and advanced and outspoken manifestations proceeded from aristocratic and ecclesiastical constituencies. On February 9 the Venetian envoy reports that the clergy and nobles are ready to accept the principle of equality in taxation. The elections were going on for more than two months, from February to the beginning of May.

      In accordance with ancient custom, when a deputy was a plenipotentiary more than a representative, it was ordained that the preliminary of every election was the drawing up of instructions. Every corner of France was swept and searched for its ideas. The village gave them to its elector, and they were compared and consolidated by the electors in the process of choosing their member. These instructions, the characteristic bequest to its successors of a society at the point of death, were often the work of conspicuous public men, such as Malouet, Lanjuinais, Dupont, the friend of Turgot and originator of the commercial treaty of 1786; and one paper, drawn up by Sieyès, was circulated all over France by the duke of Orleans.

      In this way, by the lead which was taken by eminent and experienced men, there is an appearance of unanimity. All France desired the essential institutions of limited monarchy, in the shape of representation and the division of power, and foreshadowed the charter of 1814. There is scarcely a trace of the spirit of departing absolutism; there is not a sign of the coming republic. It is agreed that precedent is dead, and the world just going to begin. There are no clear views on certain grave matters of detail, on an Upper House, Church and State, and primary education. Free schools, progressive taxation, the extinction of slavery, of poverty, of ignorance, are among the things advised. The privileged orders are prepared for a vast surrender in regard to taxes, and nobody seems to associate the right of being represented in future parliaments with the possession of property. On nine-tenths of all that is material to a constitution there is a general agreement. The one broad division is that the Commons wish that the States-General shall form a single united Assembly, and the other orders wish for three. But on this supreme issue the Commons