Chapter VII.

       The Assembly of the Notables

       Table of Contents

      Measures of Brienne.—The Bed of Justice.—Remonstrance of Parliament.—Parliament Exiled.—Submission of Parliament.—Duke of Orleans.—Treasonable Plans of the Duke of Orleans.—Anxiety of the Queen.—The Diamond Necklace.—Monsieur, the King's Brother.—Bagatelle.—Desperation of Brienne.—Edict for abolishing the Parliaments.—Energy of the Court.—Arrest of D'Espréménil and Goislard.—Tumults in Grenoble.—Terrific Hail-storm.

The Notables, one hundred and forty-four in number, nearly all ecclesiastics, nobles, or ennobled, met at Versailles, Jan. 29, 1787. Calonne expected that this body, carefully selected by the king, would advise that all orders should make common cause and bear impartially the burden of taxation. Sustained by the moral power of this advice he hoped that the measure could be carried into execution. He presented his statement of affairs. Though he endeavored to conceal the worst, the Notables were appalled. Three hundred and fifty millions of dollars had been borrowed within a few years, and the annual deficit was thirty-five millions of dollars.58 Cautiously he proposed his plan of impartial taxation. It was the signal for a general assault upon the doomed minister. He was literally hooted down. Not only the Assembly of Notables, but the clergy, the Parliament, the nobles all over the realm pounced upon him, led even by the queen and the Archbishop of Paris; and Calonne, without a friend, was compelled to resign his office and to fly from France.59

The clergy were exceedingly exasperated against Calonne, for they deemed the proposition to tax the possessions of the Church as sacrilegious. The most active of the opponents of Calonne was Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. He was a bold, resolute, ambitious man, and by the influence of the queen was appointed to succeed Calonne. "As public credit was dead," said a wag, "an archbishop was summoned to bury the remains."60 The spirit of discontent and of menace was now becoming every day more extended and alarming, and the Revolution was gaining strength.

Among the Notables thus assembled there were some warm advocates of popular liberty. La Fayette was perhaps the most conspicuous of these. He spoke boldly against lettres de cachet and other abuses. The Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., reproved him for this freedom. La Fayette firmly, yet with caution, responded, "When a Notable is summoned to speak his opinion he must speak it."61

      One of the first acts of Brienne was to abolish the Assembly of Notables.

      Their session continued but nine weeks, being dissolved May 25, 1787. He then struggled for a time in the midst of embarrassments inextricable until he was compelled to propose the same measure which had already been three times rejected with scorn, and which had driven three ministers in disgrace from Paris—the taxing of the nobles. He did every thing in his power to prepare the way for the suggestion, and connected the obnoxious bill with another less objectionable, hoping that the two might pass together. But the clergy and the nobles were on the alert.

      Two thirds of the territory of the kingdom had been grasped by the Church and the nobles. One third only belonged to the people. Brienne proposed a territorial tax which should fall upon all landed proprietors alike. There was an instantaneous shout of indignation from the whole privileged class, and the cry "Away with him," "Hustle him out," spread from castle to castle, and from convent to convent.

      It was a custom, rather than a law, that no royal decree could pass into effect until it had been registered by Parliament; and it was a custom, rather than a law, that, if the Parliament refused to register a decree, the king could hold what is called a bed of justice; that is, could summon the Parliament into his presence and command the decree to be registered. As the king could banish, or imprison, or behead any one at his pleasure, no Parliament had as yet ventured to disobey the royal command.

      The Parliament declined registering the decree taxing the property of the clergy and the nobles. The king peremptorily summoned the whole refractory body to appear before him. It was the 6th of August, 1787. In a vast train of carriages, all the members, some one hundred and twenty in number, wheeled out from Paris to the Palace of Versailles. There the king with his own lips ordered them to register the decree. Obedient to the royal order it was registered, and the Parliament, sullen and exasperated, was rolled back again to the metropolis. The people contemplated the scene in silent expectation, and by thousands surrounded the Parliament on its return, and greeted them with acclamations.

      Emboldened by the sympathy of the people in this conflict with the court, the Parliament ventured to enter upon its records a remonstrance against the violent procedure; and, to gain still more strength from popular approval, they made the strange assertion that Parliament was not competent to register tax edicts at all; that for this act the authority of the three estates of the realm was essential, convened in the States-General. This was, indeed, unheard of doctrine, for the Parliament had for centuries registered such decrees. It, however, answered its purpose; it brought the masses of the people at once and enthusiastically upon their side.

This call for the States-General was the first decisive step toward bringing the people into the field. Tumultuous crowds surrounded the palace where the Parliament held its session, and with clapping of hands and shouts received the tidings of the resolutions adopted. The king, indignant, issued letters de cachet on the night of the 14th, and the next morning the whole body was arrested and taken in carriages into banishment to Troyes, a dull city about one hundred miles from Paris. The blessings of the people followed the Parliament;62 "for there are quarrels," says Carlyle, "in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome."

      Paris was now in a state of commotion. Defiant placards were posted upon the walls, and there were angry gatherings in the streets. The two brothers of the king, subsequently Louis XVIII. and Charles X., entered Paris in state carriages to expunge from the records of the Parliament the obnoxious protests and resolutions. They came with a well-armed retinue. The stormy multitudes frowned and hissed, and were only dispersed by the gleam of the sword.

      For a month Parliament remained at Troyes, excessively weary of exile. In the mean time Brienne had no money, and could raise none. Both parties were ready for accommodation. The crown consented to relinquish the tax upon the nobles, and to summon the States-General in five years. Parliament consented to register an edict for a loan of one hundred millions of dollars, the burden of which was to fall upon the people alone. With this arrangement the exiled Parliament was brought back on the 20th of September. "It went out," said D'Espréménil, "covered with glory. It came back covered with mud."

      On the 20th of September the king appeared before the Parliament in person, to present the edict for the loan and the promise to convoke the States-General at the close of five years.

There was at that time in Parliament a cousin of the king, the Duke of Orleans, one of the highest nobles of the realm.63 Inheriting from his father the enormous