The Bourbon Kings of France (26 page)

From the very beginning, the French had shown remarkable sympathy for the Americans in their Revolution. No doubt some of this enthusiasm was a legacy from the Seven Years War, a determination to be revenged for the humiliations which England had inflicted on France. However, Frenchmen of the period undoubtedly felt genuine admiration for the colonists. Lord Stormont, the English ambassador, reported sardonically of the Parisians that, ‘Our Wits, Philosophers and Coffee House Politicians … are all to a Man warm Americans, affecting to consider them as a brave People struggling for its Natural Rights and endeavouring to rescue those Rights out of the Hands of violent and wanton Oppression.’ Indeed, the Declaration of Independence reflected all the most hallowed ideals of the French Enlightenment, and there was a popular clamour to join in and help these colonial heroes against the traditional enemy.

One person who definitely did not want war was the King. Although he understood little about finance, he must have shuddered at Turgot’s warning. Louis hated bloodshed, and had small inclination to encourage rebellion against a fellow monarch; if he ever read it, he would certainly have agreed with a contemporary English pamphlet which cautioned him that the same spirit which had begun the American Revolution might well be preparing a revolution in France. However, the Americans were brilliantly successful in fanning the enthusiasm which so many Frenchmen felt for their cause; their ambassador, Benjamin Franklin, with his quaint (and carefully contrived) charm and his reputation as a scientist and man of letters, conquered both Versailles and Paris; he was popularly known as
l’ambassadeur électrique
. Only Louis disliked him. In addition, the Americans had the writer Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais on their side; the future author of
Le Mariage de Figaro
pestered Vergennes ceaselessly. Eventually that cautious diplomat, too clever by half, was persuaded that an American victory would win back for France and Spain everything which they had lost during the Seven Years War. Maurepas and most of the other ministers agreed with him. Louis, always irresolute, gave way reluctantly; many years afterwards he told M de Molleville, his naval secretary, ‘I never think of the American affair without regret—I was young then and advantage was taken of my youth, but now we have to suffer the consequences.’

Vergennes led the King by easy steps. First he obtained his permission to send a secret agent to Philadelphia, the pleasantly named Chevalier de Bonvouloir, to make contact with the revolutionary government. He then persuaded Louis to supply the rebels secretly with money, arms and uniforms, avoiding open war. The English raged but the French government blandly insisted that if any French supplies were reaching the colonists, it could only be the work of smugglers. The aid amounted to millions of pounds. In February 1778 France recognized the United States, signing a treaty of friendship and commerce, together with a secret treaty of military alliance. England at once declared war on France. Next year Spain joined in, on the side of France.

Many French volunteers had been fighting in America before 8,000 royal troops, including the Marquis de Lafayette, a red-haired, chinless wonder of nineteen, landed in 1780 to save the Revolution. Louis followed their campaigns with the keenest enthusiasm, poring over maps. At sea, Choiseul’s new navy proved its worth under men like Estaing and Rochambeau, destroying the legend that Britannia rules the waves. The Comte de Grasse prevented reinforcements reaching General Cornwallis at Yorktown, forcing him to surrender with 7,000 men, a feat which made ultimate American victory certain, while the fat old Bailli de Suffren (who had learnt his seamanship with the Knights of Malta) terrorized the English navy in the Indian Ocean, winning four shattering victories in 1782 alone. Nearer home, the Duc de Crillon captured Minorca again, though the English just managed to hold Gibraltar against a furiously determined siege by the French and the Spaniards. However, a massive invasion of England had to be called off because the crews were found to be scurvy-ridden.

Throughout the war, Necker, horrified at the expense, had been trying to make peace behind Vergennes’s back, but George III’s government refused to do so until France stopped helping the rebels. Most ungratefully, the Americans cynically concluded a separate peace with the English at the end of 1782, obtaining complete independence. None the less, the Treaty of Versailles which France signed with England on 3 September 1783 was ample revenge for the Seven Years War. In the West Indies she regained St Lucia and Tobago, in India most of her trading posts (including Pondicherry), and in Africa Senegal, besides many valuable trading concessions. England was humiliated, losing colonies of far greater worth than any which had been taken from France after the previous war. It was the last great triumph of the French monarchy.

France’s prestige, at its highest for many years, was reflected in diplomacy during the remainder of the 1780s. Already she had prevented war breaking out between Prussia and Austria over Bavaria (in 1779) by tactful mediation. By subsidizing Gustav III, she was able to use Sweden as an instrument for exercising at least some small restraint on Prussian ambitions. In 1786 France signed a commercial treaty with England which lowered tariff walls, while the following year a treaty with Russia opened up hitherto unknown areas of trade. Culturally, the entire Western world was still in thrall to Francomania.

At home, Ernest Semichon claims that during Louis XVI’s reign ‘nearly every political, religious and judicial problem was investigated and in many cases solved’. If exaggerated, this claim is still not entirely without substance. Even Tocqueville admits that, ‘During his entire reign Louis XVI was always talking about reform, and there were few institutions whose destruction he did not contemplate before the Revolution broke out and made an end of them.’ He tried to improve conditions in prisons and hospitals, and ordered free treatment for sufferers from venereal disease. He abolished the death penalty for desertion. It was the King, not Necker, who was responsible for abolishing the ‘Preparatory Question’ (torture by water or the boot to extract a confession after arrest) in 1780, but the Parlements prevented him from abolishing torture before execution. Louis also put an end to serfdom on Crown lands, though it was retained on the estates of the clergy and nobility. As will be seen, he envisaged legal reforms which would have swept away the Parlements.

New canals were dug between the greatest French rivers, while the naval harbour at Cherbourg was protected by an impressive sea wall. A Royal Society of Medicine was founded, together with a Veterinary College and a School of Mines, and the Academy of Sciences was expanded to include agriculture, biology, mechanical sciences and mineralogy. An institution for deaf mutes was established and also an institution for the blind. The world of European science was dominated by such Frenchmen as Lavoisier—‘the father of modern chemistry’—and the agriculturalist Parmentier, who, with the King’s encouragement, popularized the potato. Most dramatic of all, the brothers Montgolfier were making their first ascents in hot air balloons. It was not only for reasons of sycophancy that statues of Louis were erected all over the country with inscriptions like ‘Servitude abolished’, ‘The Navy restored’, and ‘Commerce protected’. If it had not been for ‘the unfortunate reality of the deficit’, as he described the monetary crisis, Louis XVI might have bumbled happily on for the rest of his natural life.

It was a bad time for anyone to be poor. About 1778 France entered into a long depression, both agricultural and industrial. The rural economy, which was in any case backward enough, was severely damaged by a steep decline in grain prices and an even more catastrophic drop in the price of wine; as a result peasants could not make a living from their produce. The repercussions affected the hitherto advancing economy of the towns, where production fell disastrously in such industries as the cloth trade, and many workers were laid off. There was poverty and unemployment throughout the entire country, in painful contrast to the comparative affluence of Louis XV’s reign. All classes found themselves short of money. Unfortunately, the recession coincided with a crisis in the national finances.

Tocqueville was perfectly correct in claiming that ‘France was ruined before she ceased to be victorious’. It has been calculated that the American War may have cost the French government as much as 2,000,000,000 livres (well over £ 80 million). When Necker was dismissed in 1781, he had only avoided state bankruptcy by massive borrowing, and during his last year of office, the annual deficit—the gap between revenue and expenditure—was at least 50 million livres (more than £ 2 million), quite apart from the hundreds of million livres of national debt. But the wily banker had concealed the full horror of the situation by his
Compte rendu
.

Necker was dismissed largely because old Maurepas had grown jealous of him, and had made the aristocratic party fearful of the half-hearted reforms which the Director of Finances had been trying to introduce. The opposition was led by the Duc d’Orléans, his son Chartres, Monsieur (the Comte de Provence) and the Comte Artois; characteristically, the latter called Necker ‘a fornicating foreign bastard’. As soon as the Director had gone, a number of reactionary measures were brought in—four proofs of nobility (ie to show that all four grandparents had been noble) now became necessary for any candidate for a commission in the army. None the less, Louis insisted that bourgeois sailors should have the chance of becoming naval officers.

Despite Louis’s good intentions, to survive a minister had to keep both the Queen and all the Princes on his side. Maurepas (who died at the end of 1781) understood this very well and would go to almost any lengths to ensure their support. During Marie Antoinette’s first pregnancy, when she was unable to go to a ball and a torchlight charade was staged by the court to divert her, the venerable and all but octogenarian minister—who had been famed even as a young man for his impotence—appeared in pink silk as Cupid.

For Louis, the 1780s were probably the happiest years of his life. In 1777 he had at last consented to the very minor operation which made it possible for him to have normal relations with his wife. On 30 August of that year, Marie Antoinette wrote to her mother, ‘I am so deeply happy … my marriage was perfectly consummated a week ago.’ (The tone of her letter indicates that much of her objectional behaviour hitherto may well have been due to frustration.) Ingenuously, the King told
Mesdames Tantes
that the physical pleasure was even greater than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, he still did not sleep with the Queen as much as she would have liked, despite her ‘tormenting him to come more often’, and Maria Theresa remained sceptical about any hopes of a pregnancy. However, in December 1778 Marie Antoinette at last gave birth to a child, the Princess Marie Thérèse—Madame Royale. (This grave little girl was later known as
Mousseline la sérieuse
, on account of her old-fashioned expression.)

Louis was overjoyed, as indeed was the entire country; when the Queen went to Nôtre Dame for her churching, she was cheered by the crowd. An exception to the general rejoicing was Monsieur who, at the christening, asked sourly who was the father. On 21 October 1781 Marie Antoinette had a second child, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph; the King was so overcome that he wept and stammered. Again gossips, led by Monsieur, said that the real father was Artois. It was a delicate creature, tormented by rickets and bone tuberculosis, whose health gave cause for alarm from the very beginning. But another son was born in 1785, Louis-Charles, Duc de Normandie—the future Louis XVII. There was also a fourth child, the Princess Sophie Béatrice, who did not reach her second year. Now that she had children the Queen led a much quieter life. Despite occasional squabbles, she and the King had always been good friends, and now fell genuinely in love with each other. She too grew fatter, with a bust measurement of forty-four inches (according to her dressmaker’s order book).

Louis was extremely popular, especially with those who came into contact with him. Artois’s Scots gardener, Thomas Blaikie, obviously liked what he saw; ‘The King was dressed almost like a country farmer, a good rough stout man about twenty-five.’ At thirty he was even fatter, as a consequence of hunting a little less and of reading rather more while continuing to indulge his extraordinary appetite. But the French have never blamed anyone for enjoying their food. When he visited the new naval base at Cherbourg in 1785, although the expense of the trip was sharply criticized in Paris, the King had a personal triumph; peasants lined the roads to cheer him as he passed. Louis was noticeably moved, kissing the girls and shouting back,
‘Vive mon bon peuple!’
when the crowd cried
‘Vive le Roi!’
Indeed most Frenchmen still felt an extraordinary reverence for the King—what the normally unsentimental Tocqueville defines as ‘both the natural love of children for their father and the awe properly due to God alone’. Foreigners were astonished by the passionate interest which the French took in the person of their sovereign. The Scot John Moore, who visited France in 1779, noted that Louis’s slightest illness alarmed the entire country: ‘Did he cough?—Yes, by Gad! And strongly—I am in despair.’ This reverence continued right up to the Revolution. His subjects did not blame the deficit and the hard times on the King—it was all the fault of his advisers and that ‘Austrian bitch’ of a wife.

Many years later, the Comte de Hézecques, a royal page from 1786–92, gave a fascinating portrait of the King he had served. ‘When seated on the throne Louis XVI looked well enough, but it has to be confessed that he walked with an unpleasant waddle … He dressed very plainly in grey or brown coats, with a steel or silver sword, though on Sundays and feast days he wore white velvet.’ Hézecques adds, ‘I spent nearly six years at court and I never once saw the King act rudely, even in the slightest way to any one of all his servants.’ He also emphasizes that Louis had no favourites.