Historical Characters

“Already a great operation with regard to this estate is inevitable, in order to provide suitably for those whom the relinquishment of tithes has left destitute.

“I think it unnecessary to discuss at length the question of church property. What appears to me certain is, that the clergy is not a proprietor like other proprietors, inasmuch as that the property which it enjoys (and of which it cannot dispose) was given to it – not for its own benefit, but for the performance of duties which are to benefit the community. What appears to me also certain is, that the nation, exercising an almost unlimited power over all the bodies within its bosom, possesses – not the right to destroy the whole body of the clergy, because that body is required for the service of religion – but the right to destroy any particular aggregations of such body whenever they are either prejudicial or simply useless; and if the State possesses this right over the existence of prejudicial or useless aggregations of the clergy, it evidently possesses a similar right over the property of such aggregations.

“It appears to me also clear that as the nation is bound to see that the purpose for which foundations or endowments were made is fulfilled, and that those who endowed the church meant that the clergy should perform certain functions: so, if there be any benefices where such functions are not performed, the nation has a right to suppress those benefices, and to grant the funds, therefrom derived, to any members of the clergy who can employ them according to the object with which they were given.

“But although it is just to destroy aggregations of the clergy which are either prejudicial or useless, and to confiscate their property – although it is just to suppress benefices which are no longer useful for the object for which such benefices were endowed – is it just to confiscate or reduce the revenue of those dignitaries and members of the church, who are now actually living and performing the services which belong to their sacred calling?

“For my own part, I confess the arguments employed to support the contrary opinion appear to me to admit of several answers. I shall submit one very simple answer to the Assembly.

“However the possession of a property may be guaranteed and made inviolable by law, it is evident that the law cannot change the nature of such property in guaranteeing it.

“Thus, in a question of ecclesiastical property, it can only assure to each titulary the enjoyment of the actual donation of the founder. But every one is aware that, according to the titles of church property, as well as according to the various laws of the church, which explain the spirit and meaning of these titles, the only part of church property to which the ecclesiastic has any individual right is that necessary for his honest subsistence: the remainder has to be applied to the relief of the poor, or to the maintenance of places of worship. If then the nation assures to the holder of a benefice, whatever that benefice may be, his necessary subsistence, it does not violate his individual property; and if at the same time that it takes possession of that portion of his revenue which is not required for his subsistence, it assumes the other obligations attached to the benefice in question, such as the maintenance of hospitals, the performance of works of charity, the repairing of churches, the expenses of public education, &c.; and, above all, if it does this in a moment of general distress, I cannot but believe that the intentions of the donors will be fully carried out, and that justice will still be maintained.

“I think, then, that the nation in a period of general distress may appropriate the property of those religious establishments which it deems it necessary to suppress, by securing to their dependants their necessary subsistence; that it may also profit by all benefices to which no duties are attached, and assure to itself the reversion of all such benefices as may hereafter fall into that condition; and lastly, that it may reduce all extravagant salaries now enjoyed by the clergy if it take to itself all the obligations – apart from the decent maintenance of the clergy – which originally attached to church property according to the founder’s bequest. Such are the principles according to which the State may, in my opinion, legitimately appropriate the whole of the ecclesiastical property, on assuring to the clergy therefrom what would be sufficient for their decent support.”

Thus M. de Talleyrand contended: —

1st. That the members of the clergy were not like other proprietors, inasmuch as they held their property not for their own enjoyment but for the performance of certain duties, and that it was only intended that they should have out of the proceeds of that property a decent subsistence, the residue being destined for the support of the poor and the maintenance of religious edifices.

2nd. That the State could alter the distribution of church property, or rather the payment of the clergy, and also totally suppress such ecclesiastical institutions as it deemed injurious or not requisite; as well as such useless benefices as were then vacant, or might become vacant; and, as a matter of course, employ the revenue which was thereto attached, in the manner which might seem best adapted to the general advantage.

3rd. That in a moment of great and national distress it might altogether take possession of the whole property held by the clergy, and appropriate the same to public purposes; if at the same time it took upon itself those charges with which the clergy were intrusted, and also provided for the clergy themselves a fixed and adequate support. He did not, however, propose, as some may have idly imagined, and have unjustly stated, to reduce his order to a state of indigence; on the contrary, presuming the revenue of the church property, including the tithes (which he would still have had collected as national revenue), to be about a hundred and fifty millions of francs, he advised the government to make a yearly grant of no less than a hundred millions – never to be reduced below eighty-five millions – for the support of the clergy, no member of it receiving less than twelve hundred francs, to which was added a dwelling; and when we consider that the tithes having been surrendered, the ecclesiastical revenue was at that time reduced to seventy-five millions, the rent of the land; and when we consider also that the ecclesiastical budget, including the payment of all religions, has never, since that period, amounted to the sum which M. de Talleyrand was disposed to allow, I think it must be acknowledged that the proposals I have been describing, looking at all the difficulties of the times, were not to be despised, and that the French clergy would have acted more prudently if they had at once accepted them, although it must be confessed that any bargain made in changeful times between a power which is sinking in the State and a power which is rising, is rarely kept faithfully by the latter.

But the clergy, at all events, and the high clergy especially, would not accept this bargain. They complained not so much of the insufficiency of the provision which was to be made for them, as of the grievance of having an income as proprietors changed into a salary as functionaries. They contended, in short, that they were proprietors like other proprietors, and that the Bishop of Autun had misstated their case and justified their robbery.

In this state of things – whatever the real nature of the title under which the church held its possessions – whatever the imprudence of the clergy themselves in resisting the compromise that was proposed to them as an equivalent for the surrender of those possessions – it was impossible forcibly to confiscate a property which a great corporation had held indisputedly for ages and which it declared itself unwilling to resign, without weakening the respect for property in general, and weakening also, by the questions and discussions to which such a measure was certain to give rise, the respect for religion: thus enfeebling and undermining – at a moment when (amidst the falling ruins of an old government and society) it was most essential to strengthen and preserve – those foundations on which every society that pretends to be civilized, and every government that intends to be honest, has to establish its existence.

“The wise,” says a great reformer, “should be cautious about making great changes when the foolish are clamorous for dangerous innovations.” But although the maxim may be a good one, I suspect that it is more likely to be professed by the speculative philosopher than followed by the ambitious statesman.

There are, in fact, moments in the history of nations when certain events are, by the multiplied force of converging circumstances, inevitably foredoomed; and in such moments, whilst the ignorant man is obstinate, the proud man firm, the religious man resigned, the “politic man” accommodates himself to fate, and only attempts to mix up as much good as he can with the evil which has to be accepted.

It is easy to conceive, therefore, that when M. de Talleyrand proposed the appropriation of the church property by the State, he did so because he saw that at all events it would be appropriated; because he thought that he might as well obtain the popularity which was to be got by the proposition; and likewise because he could thus bargain for such conditions as, if they had been frankly accepted by one party and fairly carried out by the other, would have secured an honourable existence to the clergy and an immense relief to the State. I say an immense relief to the State, since, according to the calculations which the Bishop of Autun submitted to the Assembly – and these seem to have been made with consideration – had the immense property, valued at two milliards of francs, been properly sold, and the proceeds properly applied, these, by paying off money borrowed at enormous interest and life annuities which were granted at an extravagant loss, might with tolerable economy have converted a deficit of some millions of francs into a surplus of about the same amount.

But it happened at this time, as it not unfrequently happens when passion and prudence unite in some great enterprise, the part which passion counselled was consummated completely and at once; the part which prudence suggested was transformed and spoilt in the execution. To this subject I shall by-and-by have to return.

The motion of M. de Talleyrand with respect to the property of the church was carried on the 2nd of November, 1789, after some stormy debates; and the party he had defeated now classed him amongst its bitterest opponents. But, on the 4th of December, he gained more than a party triumph by the singular lucidity with which, on the question of establishing a bank at Paris and restoring order generally to the French finances, he explained the principles of banking and public credit, which the public at that time enveloped in the mystery with which ignorance surrounds those subjects which are detailed in figures, and involve such vast interests as the resources and necessities of a nation.

The admirable talent which M. de Talleyrand displayed on this occasion consisted in rendering clear what appeared obscure, and simple what seemed abstract. After showing that a bank could only exist with benefit to itself and to others by its credit – and that this credit could not be the effect of a paper money with a forced currency, on which some persons were disposed to form one, inasmuch as that a currency which was forced was nothing more or less than an exhibition of the insolvency of the institution which it was intended to protect – he turned to the general condition and credit of the State, and said: “The time, gentlemen, is gone by for complicated fiscal plans, learnedly and artfully combined, which are merely invented to delay by temporary resources the crisis which is inevitably arriving. All the contrivances of wit and cunning are exhausted. For the future, honesty must replace genius. Side by side with the evidence of our calamities must be placed the evidence of their remedy. All must be reduced to the simplicity of an account-book – drawn up by good sense, kept by good faith.”

This speech obtained for its author general encomiums: it was praised in the boudoir of the fine lady, for the elegance of its style; in the country house of the banker, for the soundness of its views; even the Faubourg St. Germain acknowledged that M. de Talleyrand, though a scélérat (a rascal), was a statesman, and that in those iniquitous times a scélérat, a man of quality, and a statesman, might be useful to his country. Such universal popularity did not last long. In the following month (January 31, 1790), the liberal bishop declared himself in favour of conferring upon a Jew the rights of a French citizen. This opinion – considered by many as a double outrage against the distinctions hitherto maintained between castes and between creeds – admitted of no pardon from a large portion of that society which M. de Talleyrand had formerly frequented; and I have read, in some tale of the time, that the Marquis de Travanet, a famous player of “tric-trac,” used subsequently to say, in making what is called “la case du diable,” “je fais la case de l’évêque d’Autun.”

A man’s reputation, however, when parties run high, is not unfrequently made by his opponents; and the name of M. de Talleyrand now rose in the country and the Assembly just in proportion as it sank in the circles of the court and amongst the extreme partisans of priestly intolerance and royal prerogative.

Few persons had, in fact, rendered such important services to the cause which he had espoused. To his endeavours, as we have seen, it was mainly owing that the clergy joined the commons in the church of St. Louis, and thus constituted the States-General. Shortly afterwards, by contending against the imperative nature of those orders which the members of the States-General had received from their constituents, he had aided in no small degree in releasing the National Assembly from the instructions which would otherwise have fettered its progress. Elected a member of the committee, appointed to prepare the new constitution which was to be given to France, his labours had been amongst the most valuable of that body, and the future rights of Frenchmen had been proclaimed in the words which he had suggested as most appropriate. Evincing on all questions of finance that knowledge of principles which produces clearness of statement, he had ably assisted M. Necker in the measures by which that statesman had sought to reassure public credit and raise the revenue; and, finally, he had delivered up the wealth and power of his own order, as a sacrifice (such, at least, was his pretension) to the public weal.

The part which he had taken in the proceedings of the Assembly was, indeed, so considerable, that it was thought that no one could be better qualified to explain and defend its conduct. With such an explanation or defence he was charged; and he executed his task in a sort of memoir or manifesto to the French nation. This manifesto was read in the National Assembly on the 10th of February, 1790, and subsequently published and circulated throughout France. It has long since been forgotten amongst the many papers of a similar kind which have marked and justified the successive changes that France has for the last eighty years undergone.

But the skill and address of its composition was the subject of universal praise at the time of its appearance, and it still remains a remarkable exhibition of the ideas, and a skilful and able attempt to vindicate the actions, of an epoch which is yet awaiting the final judgment of posterity.

The memoir or manifesto, to which I have been alluding, announced the abolition of privileges, the reform of the church, the institution of a representative chamber and a citizen guard; and promised a new system of taxation, and a general plan of education. It was read, as I have said, on the 10th of February, in the National Assembly, and on the 16th of the same month its author was named president of that assembly13 by a majority of three hundred and seventy-five votes to one hundred and twenty-five, although the Abbé Sieyès – no mean rival – was his competitor.

This honour received additional solidity from a most able report in favour of the uniformity of weights and measures, which M. de Talleyrand made to the Assembly on the 30th April, 1790: a report which, carrying out the idea that Turgot had been anxious to establish, and furnishing a method for destroying the inconvenient distinctions which separated province from province, laid the foundation for that uniform system which now prevails throughout the French dominions. Nor would M. de Talleyrand have applied this project merely to France; he at the same time suggested that commissions from the Academy of Sciences in Paris and the Royal Society in London should be appointed to fix on some natural unity for measure and weight, which should be alike applicable to England and France. “Chacune des deux nations,” he added, “formerait sur cette mesure ses étalons, qu’elle conserverait avec le plus grand soin, de telle sorte que si, au bout de plusieurs siècles, on s’apercevait, de quelque variation dans l’année sidérale, les étalons pussent servir à l’évaluer, et par là à lier ce point important du système du monde à une grande époque – celle de l’Assemblée Nationale. Peut-être même est-il permis de voir dans ce concours de deux nations interrogeant ensemble la nature, pour en obtenir un résultat important, le principe d’une union politique, operée par l’entremise des sciences.”14

It is impossible not to sympathise with a conception at once so elevated and so practical as that which is here expressed; and rejoice at thus finding an example of what Bacon – himself no less a statesman than a philosopher – claims as the attribute of men of science and letters, viz.: that when they do give themselves up to public affairs, they carry thereunto a spirit more lofty and comprehensive than that which animates the mere politician.

The greater part of the work which the Assembly had proposed to itself, was now terminated. The old monarchy and aristocracy were destroyed; the new powers of the crown and the people were defined; the new divisions of the country into departments, districts, and communes, were marked out; the new organisation of the tribunals of justice was decreed. No one entirely approved of the constitution thus to be created, but there was an almost universal satisfaction at its being so nearly completed.