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"Impossible, for the ordonnances have been converted into bills, which bills, for the convenience of return and facility of transaction, are divided into so many parts that the originals can no longer be recognized." Louis, very much agitated, walked about, still frowning. "But, if this is as you say, Monsieur Colbert," said he, stopping all at once, "I shall be ruined before I begin to reign."
I should say there is this satisfactory conclusion to be drawn from what we have seen, that if France showed a disposition to aggrandise herself all Europe would be against her. The object of the French Government is to place France exactly in the position in which she stood a fortnight before the ordonnances that is, Talleyrand's wish, and he has rédigé his own instructions.
Two peers were at this juncture sent to negotiate with the royal family. The ministers, with Polignac at their head, went out also to Saint-Cloud. "Sire," said one of the negotiators, "if in an hour the ordonnances are not rescinded, there will be neither king nor kingdom." "Could you not offer me two hours?" said the king, sarcastically, as he turned to leave the chamber.
When I entered the breakfast-room the following morning, I found Duchesne stretched before the fire in an easy-chair, busily engaged in reading the "Moniteur" of that day, where a long list of imperial ordonnances filled nearly three columns.
One of these restricted the liberty of the Press, and was directed against journalism; another provider new rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subservient Chamber. As we have seen, these ordonnances even in foreign countries spread dismay. The revolution that ensued was the revolution of the great bankers and the business men, the haute bourgeoisie.
Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the Chambers, having found the deputies unwilling to approve their acts, and a few days afterwards the king published his own will and pleasure in what were called Les Ordonnances du Roi.
Seeing that he did not finish, and that he wished to tire us, and to manage the affair in his own way, I interrupted him, saying that the father and the son were two people; that the case in point respected the son alone, and that he had to determine whether an Intendant was authorised or not, by his office, to tax people at will; to raise imposts in the towns and country places of his department, without edicts ordering them, without even a decree of council, solely by his own particular ordonnances, and to keep people in prison four or five months, without form or shadow of trial, because they refused to pay these heavy taxes, rendered still more heavy by expenses.
Louis's date and collected by his order, although the paragraph which serves as preface to the work is given under his name and as if it had been dictated by him. Another act, known by the name of the Pragmatic Sanction, has likewise got placed, with the date of March, 1268, in the Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France, as having originated with St. Louis.
When we consider this reign from this new point of view, we are at once struck by two facts: 1st, the great number of legislative and administrative acts that we meet with bearing upon the general interests of the country, interests political, judicial, financial, and commercial; the Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France contains forty-three important acts of this sort owing their origin to Louis XII.; it was clearly a government full of watchfulness, activity, and attention to good order and the public weal; 2d, the profound remembrance remaining in succeeding ages of this reign and its deserts a remembrance which was manifested, in 1560, amongst the states-general of Orleans, in 1576 and 1588 amongst the states of Blois, in 1593 amongst the states of the League, and even down to 1614 amongst the states of Paris.
No one seems to know where the blame lies, but every one foretells a dangerous result from this unaccountable state of things. The promulgation of the ordonnances which had led to this tumult, ought to have been accompanied by a display of force sufficient to maintain their enactment.
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