History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. M. Mignet
which, changing the ancient order of things, deprived them of one of their means of attack.
It began by dividing the kingdom more equally and regularly. The provinces, which had witnessed with regret the loss of their privileges, formed small states, the extent of which was too vast, and the administration too independent. It was essential to reduce their size, change their names, and subject them to the same government. On the 22nd of December, the assembly adopted in this respect the project conceived by Sieyès, and presented by Thouret in the name of the committee, which occupied itself constantly on this subject for two months.
France was divided into eighty-three departments, nearly equal in extent and population; the departments were subdivided into districts and cantons. Their administration received a uniform and hierarchical form. The department had an administrative council composed of thirty-six members, and an executive directory composed of five members: as the names indicate, the functions of the one were to decide, and of the other to act. The district was organised in the same way; although on a smaller scale, it had a council and a directory, fewer in number, and subordinate to the superior directory and council. The canton composed of five or six parishes, was an electoral not an administrative division; the active citizens, and to be considered such it was necessary to pay taxes amounting to three days' earnings, united in the canton to nominate their deputies and magistrates. Everything in the new plan was subject to election, but this had several degrees. It appeared imprudent to confide to the multitude the choice of its delegates, and illegal to exclude them from it; this difficult question was avoided by the double election. The active citizens of the canton named electors intrusted with nominating the members of the national assembly, the administrators of the department, those of the district, and the judges of tribunals; a criminal court was established in each department, a civil court in each district, and a police-court in each canton.
Such was the institution of the department. It remained to regulate that of the corporation: the administration of this was confided to a general council and a municipality, composed of members whose numbers were proportioned to the population of the towns. The municipal officers were named immediately by the people, and could alone authorize the employment of the armed force. The corporation formed the first step of the association, the kingdom formed the last; the department was intermediate between the corporation and the state, between universal interests and purely local interests.
The execution of this plan, which organized the sovereignty of the people, which enabled all citizens to concur in the election of their magistrates, and entrusted them with their own administration, and distributed them into a machinery which, by permitting the whole state to move, preserved a correspondence between its parts, and prevented their isolation, excited the discontent of some provinces. The states of Languedoc and Brittany protested against the new division of the kingdom, and on their side the parliaments of Metz, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Toulouse rose against the operations of the assembly which suppressed the Chambres de Vacations, abolished the orders, and declared the commissions of the states incompetent. The partisans of the ancient régime employed every means to disturb its progress; the nobility excited the provinces, the parliaments took resolutions, the clergy issued mandates, and writers took advantage of the liberty of the press to attack the revolution. Its two principal enemies were the nobles and the bishops. Parliament, having no root in the nation, only formed a magistracy, whose attacks were prevented by destroying the magistracy itself, whereas the nobility and the clergy had means of action which survived the influence of the body. The misfortunes of these two classes were caused by themselves. After harassing the revolution in the assembly, they afterwards attacked it with open force—the clergy, by internal insurrections—the nobility, by arming Europe against it. They had great expectations from anarchy, which, it is true, caused France many evils, but which was far from rendering their own position better. Let us now see how the hostilities of the clergy were brought on; for this purpose we must go back a little.
The revolution had commenced with the finances, and had not yet been able to put an end to the embarrassments by which it was caused. More important objects had occupied the attention of the assembly. Summoned, no longer to defray the expenses of administration, but to constitute the state, it had suspended its legislative discussions, from time to time, in order to satisfy the more pressing necessities of the treasury. Necker had proposed provisional means, which had been adopted in confidence, and almost without discussion. Despite this zeal, he did not without displeasure see the finances considered as subordinate to the constitution, and the ministry to the assembly. A first loan of thirty millions (1,200,000l.), voted the 9th of August, had not succeeded; a subsequent loan of eighty millions (3,200,000l.), voted the 27th of the same month, had been insufficient. Duties were reduced or abolished, and they yielded scarcely anything, owing to the difficulty of collecting them. It became useless to have recourse to public confidence, which refused its aid; and in September, Necker had proposed, as the only means, an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of the revenue, to be paid at once. Each citizen was to fix his proportion himself, making use of that simple form of oath, which well expressed these first days of honour and patriotism:—"I declare with truth."
Mirabeau now caused Necker to be invested with a complete financial dictatorship. He spoke of the urgent wants of the state, of the labours of the assembly which did not permit it to discuss the plan of the minister, and which at the same time prevented its examining any other; of Necker's skill, which ensured the success of his own measure; and urged the assembly to leave with him the responsibility of its success, by confidently adopting it. As some did not approve of the views of the minister, and others suspected the intentions of Mirabeau with respect to him, he closed his speech, one of the most eloquent he ever delivered, by displaying bankruptcy impending, and exclaiming, "Vote this extraordinary subsidy, and may it prove sufficient! Vote it; for if you have doubts respecting the means, you have none respecting the want, and our inability to supply it. Vote it, for the public circumstances will not bear delay, and we shall be accountable for all postponement. Beware of asking for time; misfortune never grants it. Gentlemen, on the occasion of a ridiculous motion at the Palais Royal, an absurd incursion, which had never had any importance, save in feeble imaginations, or the minds of men of ill designs and bad faith, you once heard these words, 'Catiline is at the gates of Rome, and yet they deliberate!' And yet there were around us neither Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy, is there; it threatens to consume you, your properties, your honour, and yet you deliberate!" Mirabeau had carried away the assembly by his oratory; and the patriotic contribution was voted with unanimous applause.
But this resource had only afforded momentary relief. The finances of the revolution depended on a more daring and more vast measure. It was necessary not only to support the revolution, but to repair the immense deficit which stopped its progress, and threatened its future destiny. One way alone remained—to declare ecclesiastical property national, and to sell it for the rescue of the state. Public interest prescribed this course; and it could be done with justice, the clergy not being the proprietors, but the simple administrators of this property, devoted to religion, and not to the priests. The nation, therefore, by taking on itself the expenses of the altar, and the support of its ministers might procure and appropriate an important financial resource, and obtain a great political result.
It was important not to leave an independent body, and especially an ancient body, any longer in the state; for in a time of revolution everything ancient is hostile. The clergy, by its formidable hierarchy and its opulence, a stranger to the new changes, would have remained as a republic in the kingdom. Its form belonged to another system: when there was no state, but only bodies, each order had provided for its own regulation and existence. The clergy had its decretals, the nobility its law of fiefs, the people its corporations; everything was independent, because everything was private. But now that functions were becoming public, it was necessary to make a magistracy of the priesthood as they had made one of royalty; and, in order to make them dependent on the state, it was essential they should be paid by it, and to resume from the monarch his domains, from the clergy its property, by bestowing on each of them suitable endowments. This great operation, which destroyed the ancient ecclesiastical régime, was effected in the following manner:
One of the most pressing necessities was the abolition of tithes. As these were a tax paid by the rural population to the clergy,