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In France it had been refuted, a generation before the Revolution, by Turgot, just as brilliantly as it was met a hundred years later in the United States by James A. Garfield and his compeers.
M. Turgot had at once sent fifty thousand francs to a trader whom the rioters had robbed of a boat full of wheat which they had flung into the river; two of the insurgents were at the same time hanged at Paris on a gallows forty feet high; and a notice was sent to the parish priests, which they were to read from the pulpit in order to enlighten the people as to the folly of such outbreaks and as to the conditions of the trade in grain.
The chapter on Idealism must be read by all who believe themselves capable of abstract thought, if they would not fall under the judgment of Turgot, which Emerson quotes: "He that has never doubted the existence of matter may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical inquiries." The most essential statement is this:
But de Vergennes was the coming man in France, and Turgot no longer had the influence or the popularity to which his ability entitled him. In May, 1776, on an ill day for the French monarchy, but a fair one for the American provinces, this able statesman was ousted from the cabinet.
"So much the better," and he showed the minister out. A few hours later, M. Turgot received his dismissal. He was at his desk, drawing up an important decree; he laid down his pen, saying quietly, "My successor will finish;" and when M. de Maurepas hypocritically expressed his regret, "I retire," said M. Turgot, "without having to reproach myself with feebleness, or falseness, or dissimulation."
As regards the main body at court, from the grand dukes, the women, etc., down, he had committed the sin of which Turgot and Necker were guilty when they sought to save France but found that the women, princes, and favorites of poor Louis XVI's family were determined to dip their hands into the state treasury, and were too strong to be controlled.
It is curious that Turgot as early in his career as this should have protested against one of the most dangerous doctrines of the philosophe school. 'I have long thought, he says, 'that our nation needs to have marriage and true marriage preached to it.
When the time arrived for his final acceptance of an ecclesiastical destination, Turgot felt that honourable repugnance, which might have been anticipated alike from his morality and his intelligence, to enter into an engagement which would irrevocably bind him for the rest of his life, either always to hold exactly the same opinions, or else to continue to preach them publicly after he had ceased to hold them privately.
Most of them were politicians rather than administrators, and cared more for their places than for their country. Of the few conscientious and patriotic men who obtained power, the greater number lost it very speedily. Turgot and Malesherbes did not long remain in the Council. Necker, more cautious and conservative, could keep his place no better.
'When war, says the marquis, 'was declared between France and England, M. Turgot saw how honourable it would be to the French nation, that the vessel of Captain Cook should be treated with respect at sea.
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