Voltaire

Five Essays on Government and Economics

François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

(1694–1778)

Five Essays on Government and Economics

Extracted from Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version. Volume: 37.

Translated by William F. Fleming.

Publisher: E. R. DuMont.

Place of Publication: Paris.

Publication Year: 1901

Table of Contents

1. How Far Should We Impose On The People?

2. Titles of Honour

3. On Commerce and Luxury

4. Money and the Revenues of Kings

5. Thoughts on the Public Administration

1. How Far Should We Impose On The People?

IT is a question of great importance, however little regarded, how far the people, i.e., nine-tenths of the human race, ought to be treated like apes. The deceiving party have never examined this problem with sufficient care; and, for fear of being mistaken in the calculation, they have heaped up all the visionary notions they could in the heads of the party deceived.

The good people who sometimes read Virgil, or the “Provincial Letters,” do not know that there are twenty times more copies of the “Almanac of Liège” and of the “Courrier Boiteux” printed than of all the ancient and modern books together. No one, surely, has a greater veneration than myself for the illustrious authors of these almanacs and their brethren. I know, that ever since the time of the ancient Chaldaeans, there have been fixed and stated days for taking physic, paring our nails, giving battle, and cutting wood. I know that the best part of the revenue of an illustrious academy consists in the sale of such almanacs. May I presume to ask, with all possible submission and a becoming diffidence as to my own judgment, what harm it would do to the world were some powerful astrologer to assure the peasants and the good inhabitants of the little villages that they might safely pare their nails when they please, provided it be done with a good intention? The people, I shall be told, would not buy the almanacs of this new astrologer. On the contrary, I will venture to affirm, that there would be found among your great geniuses many who would make a merit in following this novelty. Should it be alleged that these geniuses would form factions, and kindle a civil war, I have nothing further to say on the subject, but readily give up, for the sake of peace, my too dangerous opinion.

Everybody knows the king of Boutan. He is one of the greatest princes in the universe. He tramples under his feet the thrones of the earth; and his shoes—if he has any—are provided with sceptres instead of buckles. He adores the devil, as is well known, and his example is followed by all his courtiers. He, one day, sent for a famous sculptor of my country, and ordered him to make a beautiful statue of Beelzebub. The sculptor succeeded to admiration. Never was there such a handsome devil. But, unhappily, our Praxiteles had only given five clutches to his animal, whereas the Boutaniers always gave him six. This capital blunder of the artist was aggravated by the grand master of the ceremonies to the devil, with all the zeal of a man justly jealous of his master’s rights, and of the sacred and immemorial custom of the kingdom of Boutan. He insisted that the sculptor should atone for his crime by the loss of his head. The sculptor replied that his five clutches were exactly equal in weight to six ordinary clutches; and the king of Boutan, who was a prince of great clemency, granted him a pardon. From that time the people of Boutan were undeceived with regard to the devil’s six clutches.

The same day his majesty needed to let blood. A surgeon of Gascony, who had come to his court in a ship belonging to our East India Company, was appointed to take from him five ounces of his precious blood. The astrologer of that quarter cried out that the king would be in danger of losing his life if he opened a vein while the heavens were in their present state. The Gascon might have told him that the only question was about the state of the king’s health; but he prudently waited a few minutes; and then, taking an almanac in his hand, “You were in the right, great man!” said he to the astrologer of the quarter, “the king would have died had he been bled at the instant you mention: the heavens have since changed their aspect; and now is the favourable moment.” The astrologer assented to the truth of the surgeon’s observation. The king was cured; and by degrees it became an established custom among the Boutaniers to bleed their kings whenever it was necessary.

A blustering Dominican at Rome said to an English philosopher, “You are a dog; you say it is the earth that turns round, never reflecting that Joshua made the sun stand still.” “Well! my reverend father,” replied the other, “and since that time the sun has been immovable.” The dog and the Dominican embraced each other; and even the Italians were, at last, convinced that the earth turns round.

An augur and a senator, in the time of Caesar, lamented the declining state of the republic. “The times, indeed, are very bad,” said the senator; “we have reason to tremble for the liberty of Rome.”

“Ah!” said the augur, “that is not the greatest evil; the people now begin to lose the respect which they formerly had for our order: we seem barely to be tolerated; we cease to be necessary. Some generals have the assurance to give battle without consulting us; and, to complete our misfortunes, those who sell us the sacred pullets begin to reason.”

“Well, and why don’t you reason likewise?” replied the senator, “and since the dealers in pullets in the time of Caesar are more knowing than they were in the time of Numa, should not you modern augurs be better philosophers than those who lived in former ages?”

2. Titles of Honour

IN reading Horace, I have observed this verse in an epistle to Maecenas: “Te dulcis amice revisam” “I will see you again, my dear friend.” This Maecenas was the second person in the Roman Empire; that is, he was a more considerable and a more powerful man than the greatest monarch now in Europe.

In reading Corneille I have remarked, that in a letter to the great Scudéri, governor of Notre Dame de la Garde, he thus expresses himself, when speaking of the cardinal de Richelieu: “The cardinal, your master and mine.” This, perhaps, is the first time that such a compliment was paid to a minister, ever since there were ministers, kings, and flatterers in the world. The same Peter Corneille, the author of “China,” humbly dedicates that play to the sieur de Montauron, treasurer of Spain, whom he makes no scruple to compare to Augustus. I am sorry he did not call Montauron “Monseigneur.”

It is said that an old officer, who was but little acquainted with the forms of vanity, having written to the marquis de Louvois, “Monsieur,” and received no answer, wrote to him “Monseigneur,” and still obtained none, because the minister had still the “Monsieur” at heart. At last he wrote to him: “To my God, to my God, Louvois;” and began his letter with this address: “My God, my Creator.” Does not all this prove that the Romans were great and modest, and that we are little and vain?

“How do you do, my dear friend?” said a duke to a gentleman: “At your service, my dear friend,” replied the other; and from that time his dear friend became his implacable enemy. A grandee of Portugal, conversing with a grandee of Spain, always called him “Your Excellency.” The Castilian replied: “Your Civility”—“Vuestra Merced”; a complimentary title given to those who have no real one. The Portuguese, piqued at this affront, called the Spaniard, in his turn, “Your Civility”; and then the other gave him the title of “Your Excellency.” At last, the Portuguese, whose patience was quite exhausted, said to the other: “Why do you always give me the title of Civility, when I give you that of Excellency? And why do you call me Your Excellency, when I give you the appellation of Your Civility?” “Because,” replied the Castilian, with great humility, “all titles are equal to me, provided there be no equality between you and me.”

The vanity of titles was not introduced into the northern climates of Europe till the Romans became acquainted with the Asiatic sublimity. All the kings of Asia were, and still are, cousins-german to the sun and moon. Their subjects dare not lay claim to this alliance; and the governor of a province, who styles himself the “Nutmeg of Consolation, and the Rose of Pleasure,” would be empaled should he pretend to be related, in the most distant degree, to the sun or moon. Constantine, I think, was the first Roman emperor that burdened the Christian humility with a string of pompous titles. It is true, the title of god was given to the emperors before his time; but the word “god” had no such meaning then as we now affix to it. Divus Augustus, Divus Trajanus, meant no more than Saint Augustus, Saint Trajan. They thought the dignity of the Roman Empire required that the soul of its chief should go to heaven after death; and they frequently granted the title of Saint, or Divus, to the emperor, as an earnest of his future inheritance. It was nearly for the same reason that the first patriarchs of the Christian Church were called “Your Holiness”; an appellation given them to put them in mind of what they should be.

Some people will give themselves very humble titles, provided they are sure of receiving very honourable ones in return. An abbot who calls himself friar causes his monks to address him by the title of “My Lord.” The pope styles himself “the Servant of the Servants of God.” A good priest of Holstein, one day, wrote to Pope Pius IV: “To Pius IV., the Servant of the Servants of God:” but going afterward to Rome to prosecute his suit, the Inquisition threw him into prison to teach him how to write.

Formerly none but the emperor had the title of Majesty: the other kings were called “Your Highness,” “Your Serenity,” “Your Grace.” Louis XI was the first king of France that was distinguished by the appellation of Majesty; a title, in reality, as suitable to the dignity of a great hereditary kingdom as to an elective principality: but the title of Highness was given to the king of France long after his time, and we have still some letters, written to Henry III, in which he is addressed by this designation. The states of Orleans would not allow Queen Catherine de Medici to be called Majesty. By degrees, however, this last denomination prevailed. The name is indifferent; the power only is not so. The German Chancery, always invariable in its noble customs, still pretends that all kings ought to be distinguished by no other title than that of Serenity. In the famous Treaty of Westphalia, in which France and Sweden gave laws to the holy Roman Empire, the plenipotentiaries of the emperor never presented any Latin memorials in which “his Sacred imperial Majesty” did not treat with the “Most Serene kings of France and Sweden”; but the French and Swedes, on their part, did not fail to assert that their “Sacred Majesties of France and Sweden” had many causes of complaint against the “Most Serene emperor.” At last all parties were made equal in the treaty. From that time the great sovereigns have been reckoned equal in the opinion of the people; and he that beats his neighbour is always sure to have the pre-eminence.

Philip II was the first Majesty in Spain; for “the Serenity of Charles V” was exalted into Majesty only in virtue of his being emperor. The children of Philip II were the first Highnesses, and they afterward became Royal Highnesses. The duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII., did not take the title of Royal Highness till 1631, and then the prince of Condé took the title of most Serene Highness, which the dukes of Vendôme dared not assume. The duke of Savoy had then the title of Royal Highness, and afterward obtained that of Majesty. The grand duke of Florence did as much, and almost arrived at Majesty: and, in fine, the czar, who was known in Europe only by the name of grand duke, declared himself emperor, and has been acknowledged as such.

There were formerly but two marquises in Germany, two in France, and two in Italy. The marquis of Brandenburg has become a king, and a great king; but French and Italian marquises are of a somewhat different nature. Let an Italian citizen have the honour of giving a dinner to the legate of his province, and let the legate in drinking to him say: “My lord marquis, your health,” he and his sons are dubbed marquises forever. If a provincial in France, who has no other estate in his village than the fourth part of a small ruinous lordship, arrives at Paris, raises a small fortune, or has the appearance of having raised one, he entitles himself in his deeds, “High and mighty lord, marquis, or count;” and his son will be made by his notary, “Most high and most mighty lord;” and as this ridiculous ambition does no harm either to the government or to civil society, it is allowed to pass unnoticed. Some French lords boast of having German barons in their stables: some German lords say they have French marquises in their kitchens; and it is not long since a foreigner at Naples made his coachman a duke. In matters of this nature, custom is more powerful than the royal authority. If you are but little known at Paris, you may be a count or a marquis as long as you please; but if you are a man of the long robe, or a collector of the revenues, and if the king give you a real marquisate, you will not on that account be esteemed a marquis. The famous Samuel Barnard was more truly a count than five hundred of those counts whom we daily see, and who do not possess four arpens of land. The king erected his estate of Coubert into a good earldom; and yet, if in a visit he had made himself known as Count Barnard, the company would have burst out laughing. The case is widely different in England. If the king gives a merchant the title of earl or Baron, he presently receives from the whole nation the name which belongs to him. People of the first quality, and even the king himself, call him “My Lord.” It is the same in Italy. They have there a register of lords. The pope himself gives them this title. His physician is a lord; and nobody finds fault with his dignity.

In France the “Monseigneur” is a terrible affair. A bishop, before the cardinal de Richelieu’s time, was only “My most reverend father in God”; but when Richelieu was secretary of state, and still bishop of Luçon, his brethren, the bishops, in order to prevent their being obliged to give him this exclusive title of “Monseigneur,” which the secretaries of state began to assume, agreed to give it to themselves. This step met with no opposition from the public. But as it was a new title which the king had not granted to bishops, they were still called in the edicts, declarations, decrees, and in everything that proceeded from the court, only “Sieurs”; and the gentlemen of the council, in writing to a bishop, only called him “Monsieur.” The dukes and peers met with more difficulty in putting themselves in possession of “Monseigneur.” The grand nobility, and what is called the grand robe, flatly refused them this distinction. The highest triumph of human pride is to receive titles of honour from those who think themselves our equals; but it is difficult to arrive at this point; because we everywhere find that pride combats pride. When the dukes demanded that the poor gentlemen style them “Monseigneur,” the presidents demanded the same from the advocates and procurators. We have known a president refuse to be bled because the surgeon said to him: “Sir, in which arm would you have me bleed you?” There was an old counsellor of the grand chamber who behaved with less ceremony. A pleader said to him: “My lord, the gentleman, your secretary—.” The counsellor stopped him short, and said: “You have committed three blunders in three words; I am not a lord; my secretary is not a gentleman; he is my clerk.”

In order to terminate this grand dispute of vanity, all the men of the nation must one day become “Monseigneurs,” as all the women, who were formerly “Mademoiselle,” are now become “Madame.” When one Spanish beggar meets another, he says to him: “Seigneur, has your courtesy drunk chocolate?” This polite manner of expression elevates the soul, and preserves the dignity of the species.

Caesar and Pompey were called Caesar and Pompey in the senate. But these men did not know how to live. They concluded their letters with “vale”—“farewell.”

We were, about sixty years ago, “Affectionate servants”: we are now become, “Most humble and most obedient “; and, “We have actually the honour to be” so. I pity our posterity, who will find it difficult to make any addition to these pretty forms. The duke d’Epernon, who exceeded all the Gascons in pride and haughtiness, but not in political abilities, wrote to the cardinal de Richelieu a little before his death, and concluded his letter with, “Your most humble and most obedient”; but recollecting that the cardinal had only given him, “Your most affectionate,” he despatched a messenger to bring back the letter, which was already sent off, and having happily recovered it, he wrote “Your most affectionate,” and thus died in the bed of honour.

3. On Commerce and Luxury

WITHIN the last twenty years commerce has been better understood in France than it had ever before been, from the reign of Pharamond to that of Louis XIV. Before this period it was a secret art, a kind of chemistry in the hands of three or four persons, who actually made gold, but without communicating the secret by which they had been enriched. The body of the nation were in such profound ignorance of this important secret that we had neither minister nor magistrate that knew what the words “annuities,” “principal,” “exchange,” or “dividend” meant. It was destined that a Scotchman called John Law should come into France and overturn the whole economy of our government to instruct us. He had the courage, in the most horrible confusion of our finances, and in the time of a most dreadful famine, to establish a bank and an India company. This was giving a vomit to the sick; we took too much, and convulsions were the consequence: but, at length, from the ruins of his system, we had left us an India company, with a capital amounting to the sum of fifty millions of livres. What had been the case had we taken a moderate dose of that salutary medicine? In my opinion, the state had certainly been the most vigorous and powerful in the whole world.

There prevailed still among us, at the time when the present India company was established, a prejudice so very strong that the Sorbonne declared the sharing of dividends of actions usurious. In the same manner the German printers, who came to establish their art in France, were, in 1570, accused of witchcraft.

We Frenchmen, there is no denying it, have come very late into everything. Our first steps in the arts have been to thwart the introduction of those truths which came to us from abroad: we defended theses against the circulation of the blood, after it had been demonstrated in England; against the revolution of the earth, which had been made evident in Germany; not even the most salutary remedies have escaped being proscribed by an arrêt. To discover any new truths, to propose anything of general use to mankind is a sure step to persecution. John Law, that Scotchman to whom we owe our India company, and all we know of commerce, was driven out of France, and died in misery at Venice; and yet, although we had scarcely three hundred merchant ships of any burden when he proposed his system, we have now—in 1738—over eighteen hundred. Though we owe them all to him, we are yet exceedingly ungrateful to the memory of our benefactor.

The principles of commerce are known at present to all the world: we are beginning to have good books on that subject. The essay “Sur le Commerce,” of Melon, is the work of a man of sense, a good citizen, and an excellent philosopher: it has a tincture of the spirit of his age; and I do not think that even in the time of M. Colbert, there were two persons in France capable of producing such a work. There are, however, a number of errors in that excellent book; so great progress as he has made in the road to truth was no easy matter: it is a service done to the public to point out the mistakes that happen in a useful book. It is indeed in such only we should look for them. It is showing respect to a good work to contradict it; a bad one does not deserve that honour.

The following observations are such as seem contrary to truth:

1. He says those countries in which are the greatest number of beggars are the most barbarous. I believe there is no city more civilized than Paris, and where at the same time there are more beggars. This is a vermin that attach themselves to riches; the drones run from the extremities of the kingdom to Paris, in order to lay opulence and good nature under contribution. This is an abuse difficult to root out, but which proves only that there are wretches in such a country, who prefer begging to getting their livelihood by honest industry. This may be a proof of wealth and negligence, but by no means of barbarity.

2. He repeats in several places that Spain would be more powerful without America. He grounds his observations on the depopulation of Spain, and on the weakness under which that state has long languished. This notion of America weakening Spain is to be met with in a hundred different authors. But had they given themselves the trouble to reflect that the treasures of America were the cement of the power of Charles V, and that by their means Philip II would have been master of Europe, if Henry the Great, Elizabeth, and the princes of Orange had not been heroes, those authors would have been of a different way of thinking. It has been imagined that the Spanish monarchy has been in a manner annihilated, because their kings Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II were either unfortunate or weak princes. But let us see how this monarchy has resumed new life under Cardinal Alberoni; let us cast our eyes toward Africa and Italy, those theatres of the conquests of the present Spanish government, and we shall be forced to own that nations are just what kings and ministers make them. Courage, fortitude, industry, every talent remains buried till some great genius appears, who rouses and sets them in motion. The capitol is at present inhabited by Recollets, and chaplets are now distributed on the spot where vanquished kings followed the chariot of Paulus Emilius. Let but an emperor take up his residence in Rome, and let this emperor be a Julius Caesar, every Roman will become a Caesar with him.

As to the depopulation of Spain, it is not nearly so great as what it is given out to be: and even after all, this kingdom, and the states of America depending on it, are at this time so many provinces of the same empire, which are separated only by a space that may be sailed over in two months. In a word, their treasures become ours, by a necessary and unavoidable circulation. Their cochineal, their quinine, their mines of Mexico and Peru, are ours, and by the same means our manufactures are Spanish. Had America been a burden to them, is it to be thought they would have persisted so long in denying admittance into that country to strangers? Do people preserve with so much care the principle and source of ruin, after having had two hundred years to consider it?

3. He says that the loss of their soldiers is not the most fatal consequence in their wars; that a hundred thousand men are a very small number in comparison to twenty millions; but that an increase of taxes renders twenty millions of persons miserable. I will grant him twenty millions of souls in France; but I will not admit that it is better to have a hundred thousand soldiers cut to pieces than to put the rest of the nation to an additional expense in taxes. This is not all; here is a strange and fatal miscalculation. Louis XIV had, reckoning the whole body of the marine, four hundred and forty thousand men in pay during the war in 1701. The Roman Empire never had such a numerous army on foot. It has been observed that about one-fifth of an army is destroyed by the end of a campaign by disease, accidents, fire, and sword. Here then are eighty-eight thousand men destroyed each year; therefore, at the expiration of ten years, the state has lost eight hundred and eighty thousand men, together with all the children they would have procreated in that time. At present, if France contains about eighteen millions of souls, take away about one-half for the women, together with all the old men, the children, the clergy, the monks, the magistrates, and those who are necessary to carry on manufactures and to till the ground, what number remains for the defence of the nation? In eighteen millions you will hardly find eighteen hundred thousand men, and the war in ten years is supposed to have destroyed nearly nine hundred thousand. Thus the war destroys one-half a nation’s men capable of bearing arms in her defence; and you say a new impost is more disastrous to a nation than the death of so many of her best people.

After correcting these inadvertencies, which the author would have corrected himself, permit me to consider what he has advanced on freedom of commerce, on manufactures, on exchange, and chiefly with regard to luxury. This wise apology for luxury is by so much the more estimable in this author, and has so much the more force from his mouth, as his life was that of a philosopher.

What then is luxury? It is a word without any precise idea, much such another expression as when we say the eastern and western hemispheres: in fact, there is no such thing as east and west; there is no fixed point where the earth rises and sets; or, if you will, every point on it is at the same time east and west. It is the same with regard to luxury; for either there is no such thing, or else it is in all places alike. Lead us back to those times when our grandfathers wore no shirts. Had anyone told them that they must wear finer and lighter stuffs than the finest cloth, white as snow, and must change them every day; and even after they were a little dirty must, with a composition prepared with great art, restore them to their former lustre; everybody would cry out, “What luxury! What effeminacy! Such a magnificence as this is hardly sufferable in a king. You want to corrupt our manners and ruin the nation.” Do they understand by luxury the expense of an opulent person? Must he then live like the poor, he whose profusion alone is sufficient to maintain the poor? Expensiveness should be the thermometer of a private man’s fortune, as general luxury is the infallible mark of a powerful and flourishing empire. It was under Charlemagne, Francis I., and under the ministry of the great Colbert, and the present administration, that men lived at the greatest expense; that is to say, that the arts were encouraged and cultivated.

What would the tart, the satirical la Bruyère be at? What means this affected misanthrope, by crying out: “Our ancestors knew not what it was to prefer taste to utility; they were never known to light themselves with waxen tapers; this was a commodity reserved for the altar and the royal palace. They were never heard to say: ‘Let my horses be put to my coach’; good pewter shone on their tables and side-boards; their silver was laid up in their coffers,” etc. Is not this a very pleasant eulogium of our forefathers, to say they had neither taste, industry, neatness, nor plenty? Their silver was laid up in their coffers. Were this really true, it was certainly the greatest folly imaginable. Money is made for circulation, to bring the secrets of art to light, and to purchase the industry and labours of men: he who hoards it is a bad citizen, and even a bad economist. It is by circulating it that we render ourselves useful to our country and to ourselves. Will men never grow weary of commending the follies of antiquity, with a view to ridicule the advantages of our own times?

This work of Melon has produced another by M. Dutot, which is preferable, both in point of depth and justness of reasoning. This work of M. Dutot is likely to give birth to another, which will probably carry the palm from both the others, as it is the production of a statesman. Never was the study of the belles-lettres so closely connected with that of the revenues, which is an additional merit in the age in which we live.

4. Money and the Revenues of Kings

IT is well known that every change in the money in the last reign was both burdensome to the people and hurtful to the interest of the king. In these, therefore, is there no case in which an augmentation of the money may become necessary?

In a state, for instance, that has but a small share of commerce, and as small a share of money—which has long been the case with France—if a lord shall possess an estate of a hundred marks a year, he is forced to borrow, in order to marry his daughters, or to carry on a war, a thousand marks, for which he is to pay fifty marks per annum. By this means his family is reduced to the annual expense of fifty marks for all charges. In the meantime the nation becomes more industrious, carries on a trade, so that money becomes more plenty. Then, as it never fails to happen, labour becomes dearer, so that the expense of luxuries, agreeable to the rank of this family, becomes double, treble, and even quadruple; while the corn, which is the sole resource of the country, does not increase in the same proportion, because people eat no greater quantity of bread than heretofore, though a great deal more is consumed in magnificence. What was formerly bought with fifty marks, now costs two hundred; so that the owner of land, who is now obliged to pay fifty marks of annuity, is obliged to dispose of his estate. What I now say of the lord, I say equally of the magistrate, the man of letters, and of the labourer: he buys his pewter dishes, his silver cup, his bed, and his linen so much the dearer. In a word, the highest personage in the land is similarly situated when his revenues are no more than certain fixed demesnes, together with certain imposts, which he is afraid to increase, for fear of exciting murmurs among his people. In this pressing situation, there is certainly but one expedient left to ease the debtor. This may be done by abolishing his debts; this is the custom practised by the Egyptians and several other oriental nations, at the expiration of every fifty, and sometimes every thirty years. This custom was far from being so rigid as is imagined, the creditors having taken their measures accordingly, and a loss which was discernible so long beforehand can hardly be called a loss. Although this law is not in force with us, it was, however, found necessary to have recourse to it in effect, whatever roundabout methods were used to avoid it. For what is it, when one falls on a method to pay only the fourth part of what he owes, but a kind of jubilee? This was very easily discovered, by giving coins an arbitrary value, and saying, this piece of gold, which was in value six livres, shall from this day forward be valued at twenty-four; and whoever should owe four such pieces of gold, under the title of six livres each, would pay his debt by paying only one single piece of gold, which would be called twenty-four livres. As these operations were performed by insensible degrees, nobody was startled at the change. One who was both debtor and creditor gained on one hand what he lost on the other. Another carried on trade; and a third was a sufferer, and was obliged to retrench.

In this manner all the nations of Europe have proceeded, before they had a regular and an extensive commerce. Let us examine the conduct of the Romans; we shall find that the As, the pound of copper of twelve ounces, was reduced to six liards of our present money. Among the English, the pound sterling of sixteen ounces of silver is reduced to twenty-two livres of our money. The pound gross among the Dutch is worth about twelve livres. But our livre is what has undergone the greatest change of them all.

In the time of Charlemagne we called the current coin equal in value to the twentieth part of a livre, a “solide,” from the Roman name of “solidum”; this “solide” is what we now call a “sou,” in the same manner as we barbarously designate the eighth month août, which we very politely pronounce Ou; so that in our exceedingly polite language, hodieque manent vestigia ruris. In short, this “solide” or “sou,” which was the twentieth part of a livre, and the tenth part of a mark of silver, is at this day no more than a penny piece of copper money, representing the nineteen hundred and twentieth part of a livre, silver being quoted at forty-nine livres the mark. This calculation is almost incredible; and it is found by this very calculation that a family that formerly should have had a hundred “solides” yearly rent, and who could have lived extremely well, would now have no more than five-sixths of a crown of six livres to spend yearly. What does all this prove? Why this; that of all nations we have always been the most given to change, though by no means the happiest; that we have pushed the abuse of a law of nature, which requires the easing of debtors oppressed by the diminution of the value of money, to an enormous and most intolerable excess. Now, since M. Dutot has so well exposed the dangers of those sudden shocks which the change of the summary value of the coin occasions, it is to be hoped that, in an age so enlightened as ours, we run no risk of undergoing like disasters.

What most surprised me in M. Dutot’s work, was to find him asserting that Louis XII, Francis I, Henry II, and Henry II were richer than Louis XV. Who could have thought that Henry III, at the present rate of computation, at least had one hundred and sixty-three millions more revenue than our present king? I confess I have not yet been able to surmount my surprise. For how should Henry III, if he was actually possessed of such immense wealth, have found so much difficulty in opposing the Spaniards? How came he to be so oppressed by the Guises? How came France to lose her arts and manufactures? Why is it that no fine houses were built, no royal palace erected, no taste, nor the least symptoms of magnificence were then to be seen—those never-failing attendants of riches? At present three hundred fortresses, always in thorough repair, which strengthen and adorn our frontiers, and which are garrisoned with at least two hundred thousand men, are a certain proof of the superiority of our wealth. The troops which compose the king’s household may well be compared to the ten thousand, covered with gold and silver, which attended on the chariot of Xerxes and Darius. Paris contains twice the number of people, and is a hundred times more opulent than under Henry III. Commerce, which, if we had any, was in a most languishing and prostrate condition, now flourishes, to the vast emolument of the nation.

Since the last melting down of the coin, it has been found that upward of twelve hundred millions in gold and silver passed through the mint. It is found, by the sum of the stamp-duty on those metals, that there is in France about an equal quantity of bullion in wrought plate. It is true, those immense riches cannot be said to lessen the misery of the people in a year of dearth. But this is not the subject of our present inquiry: the question is, to know by what means, though the nation has become incomparably richer than in the preceding ages, the king has yet become actually poorer.

Let us first of all compare the riches of Louis XV with those of Francis I. The public revenues then amounted to sixteen millions of nominal livres, which livre was to the present as one is to four and a half. Therefore sixteen millions of such livres were equal in value to seventy-two millions of our livres; whence it follows that with seventy-two millions only we should be as rich as at that period. But the revenues of the state are supposed to amount to two hundred millions: therefore Louis XV is richer by one hundred and twenty-eight millions than Francis I.; therefore, too, this prince is three times richer than Francis I, and in consequence draws from his people three times the money that Francis I was able to do. This is very different from the calculation of M. Dutot.

He pretends, in order to prove his system, that commodities are fifteen times dearer than in the sixteenth century. Let us examine the price of commodities: we shall confine ourselves to the price of corn at the capital, one year with another. I find many years in the sixteenth century in which corn was fifty, twenty-five, twenty, and at eighteen sous, and even at four livres, from which I estimate the mean value at thirty sous. Wheat is now worth twelve livres: therefore commodities have increased in the proportion of eight times their former value, which is the same proportion as the increase of their value in England and Germany. But those thirty sous, of the sixteenth century, were worth five livres, fifteen sous of our present money. Now five livres fifteen sous make, excepting only five sous, one-half of twelve livres: wherefore Louis XV actually is three times richer than Francis I, as he pays no more than twice the sum for commodities than was paid then. Now a person who has nine hundred livres, and buys a commodity for six hundred livres, will certainly remain richer by a hundred crowns than he who, being possessed of three hundred livres, buys the same commodity for three hundred livres: therefore Louis XV remains richer by one-third.

But this is not all: instead of buying everything at double the price, he purchases soldiers, the most necessary commodity of kings, at a much cheaper rate than any of his predecessors. Under Francis I and Henry II the strength of our armies consisted in a national gendarmerie, and in foreign infantry that cannot be compared in any respect to our present troops. But the infantry under Louis XV is paid nearly on the same footing, that is, at the same price of numerary livres, as under Henry IV. The soldier sells his life and liberty at the rate of six sous a day, including his clothing: these six sous are equal to twelve in the time of Henry IV, so that with the same revenue as Henry the Great, we are able to maintain double the number of troops; and with double that sum, we can maintain four times that number. What I have said in this place suffices to show that, notwithstanding all the calculations of M. Dutot, our kings, as well as the state, are richer than formerly. I will not, however, deny that both are much deeper in debt.

Louis XIV left at his death upward of twice ten hundred millions of debt, at thirty livres the mark, because he would have, at the same time, five hundred thousand men in arms, two hundred ships of war, and build Versailles; and because, in the War of the Spanish Succession, his arms were long unprosperous; but the resources of France by much exceed her debts. A state which is indebted only to itself can never be impoverished, and even debts are a spur to industry.

5. Thoughts on the Public Administration

1

PUFFENDORF, and those who write like him on the interests of princes, make almanacs, which are defective even for the current year, and which next year are absolutely good for nothing.

2

Who would have said at the Peace of Nimeguen, that Spain, Mexico, Peru, Naples, Sicily, and Parma would one day belong to the house of France?

3

Could anyone foresee at the time that Charles XII governed Sweden with despotic sway that his successors would have no more authority than the kings of Poland?

4

The kings of Denmark were doges about a century ago; at present they are absolute.

5

The Russians in former times sold themselves like the negroes; at present they have such a high opinion of their own merit that they will not admit foreign soldiers into their army, and they reckon it a point of honour never to desert; but they must still employ foreign officers, because the nation has not yet acquired so much skill as courage, having only learned to obey.

6

Animals accustomed to the yoke offer themselves to it of their own accord. Some obscure compiler of the letters of Queen Christina has offered an insult to the common sense of mankind by justifying the murder of Monaldeschi, who was assassinated at Fontainebleau by order of a Swedish lady, under the excuse that this lady had once been queen. None but the assassins employed by her could have had the impudence to allege that that princess might lawfully do at Fontainebleau what would have been a crime at Stockholm.

7

That government would be worthy of the Hottentots in which a certain number of men should be allowed to say: “Those who labour ought to pay; we ought to pay nothing, because we are idle.”

8

That government would be an insult both to God and man in which the citizens might say: “The state has given us all we possess; and we owe it nothing but prayers.”

9

The more reason is improved, the more does it destroy the seeds of religious wars. It is the spirit of philosophy that has banished this plague from the earth.

10

Were Luther and Calvin to return to the world, they would make no more noise than the Scotists and the Thomists. The reason is, they would appear in an age when men begin to be enlightened.

11

It is only in times of barbarity that we see sorcerers, and people possessed by evil spirits, kings excommunicated, and subjects absolved from their oath of allegiance by doctors.

12

There is a convent in the world, entirely useless in every respect, which enjoys an income of two hundred thousand livres. Reason shows that if these two hundred thousand livres were given to a hundred officers who should marry, there would be a hundred useful citizens rewarded, a hundred young women provided for, and at least four hundred persons more in the state at the end of ten years, instead of fifty sluggards. It further shows that if these fifty sluggards were restored to their country they would cultivate the earth and people it; and that of course there would be more labourers and soldiers. This is what is wished for by everyone, from the prince of the blood to the vine-dresser. Superstition alone opposed it formerly; but reason, acting in subordination to faith, ought to crush superstition.

13

A prince, by a single word, can at least prevent young people from making vows before the age of twenty-five; and should anyone say to the sovereign: “What will become of young ladies of rank, whom we commonly sacrifice to the eldest sons of our families?” the prince may reply: “They will become what they are in Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, England, and Holland; they will produce citizens; they were born for propagation, and not to repeat Latin, which they do not understand. A woman that nourishes two children and spins is more useful to the state than all the convents in the world.”

14

It is a great happiness both to the prince and the state that there are a number of philosophers who impress these maxims on the minds of the people.

15

Philosophers, having no particular interest, can only speak in favour of reason and of the public good.

16

Philosophers love religion; and are useful to kings by destroying superstition, which is always an enemy to princes.

17

It was superstition that occasioned the assassination of Henry III., of Henry IV., of William, prince of Orange, and of so many others. To it we ought to ascribe the rivers of blood that have been shed since the time of Constantine.

18

Superstition is the most dreadful enemy of the human race. When it rules the prince, it hinders him from consulting the good of his people; when it rules the people, it makes them rebel against their prince.

19

There is not a single example in history of philosophers opposing themselves to the laws of the prince. There never was an age in which superstition and enthusiasm did not occasion commotions that fill us with horror.

20

Liberty consists in depending upon the laws only. In this view every man is free in Sweden, England, Holland, Switzerland, Geneva, and Hamburg. The case is the same in Venice and Genoa; though in these two places whoever does not belong to the body of the nobles is despised and contemned. But there are still many provinces, and large Christian kingdoms where the greater part of the people are slaves.

21

A time will come in these countries when some prince, more accomplished than his predecessors, will make the labourers of the land sensible that it is not wholly for their interest that a man who has one horse, or several horses, that is, a nobleman, should have a right to kill a peasant, by laying ten crowns on his grave. Ten crowns, it is true, is a very considerable sum to a man born in a certain climate; but in process of time people will have the sagacity to discover that it is of little use to a dead man. The commons then may possibly be admitted to a share in the administration; and the form of government which prevails in England and Sweden may, perhaps, be established in the neighbourhood of Turkey.

22

A citizen of Amsterdam is a man; a citizen a few degrees of longitude from there is a beast of burden.

23

All men are born equal; but a native of Morocco never dreams of such a truth.

24

This equality does not destroy subordination. As men, we are all equal; as members of society we are not. All natural rights belong equally to the sultan and to a Bostangi. Both of them may dispose with the same freedom of their persons, their families, and their effects. Thus in things essential all men are equal, though they play different parts on the theatre of the world.

25

People are always asking what is the best form of government. Put this question to a minister or to his deputy; they will doubtless be for absolute power. Put it to a baron; he would have the baronies have a share in the legislative power. The bishops will say the same. The citizen would have you consult reason, and the peasant would not wish to be forgotten. The best government seems to be that in which all ranks of men are equally protected by the laws.

26

A republican is always more strongly attached to his own country than a subject is to his; and for this good reason, too, that men have a greater regard for their own property than for that of their master.

27

What is love of our country? A compound of self-love and prejudice, which the good of society has exalted into the chief of the virtues. It is of great consequence that this vague term, “the public,” should make a deep impression.

28

When the lord of a castle or the inhabitant of a city blames the exercise of absolute power, and complains of the oppression of the peasants, believe them not. Few people complain of evils which they do not feel. Besides, the citizens and gentlemen seldom hate the person of their sovereign, except in a civil war. What they hate is absolute power in the fourth or fifth hand: it is the antechamber of a deputy or of a secretary of an intendant that occasions their murmurs: it is because they have received a rebuff from an insolent valet in the palace that they groan in their desolate fields.

29

The English reproach the French with serving their masters cheerfully. The following verses are the best that have ever been written in England on that subject:

A nation here I pity and admire;

Whom noblest sentiments of glory fire,

Yet taught by custom’s force, and bigot fear,

To serve with pride, and boast the yoke they bear:

Whose nobles born to cringe, and to command,

In courts a mean, in camps a generous band,

From priests and stock-jobbers content receive

Those laws their dreaded arms to Europe give:

Whose people vain in want, in bondage blessed,

Though plundered gay, industrious though oppressed,

With happy follies rise above their fate;

The jest and envy of a wiser state.

In answer to all these declamations with which English poetry, pamphlets, and sermons are filled we may observe that it is very natural to love a house which has reigned for nearly eight hundred years. Several foreigners, and among these some Englishmen, have come to settle in France, merely for the sake of living happily.

30

A king who is never contradicted can hardly be bad.

31

Some English peasants who have never travelled farther than London imagine that the king of France, when he has nothing else to do, sends for a president, and by way of amusement gives his estate to a valet of the wardrobe.

32

There are few countries in the world where the fortunes of individuals are more secure than in France. When Count Maurice de Nassau was setting out from The Hague, in order to take upon him the command of the Dutch infantry, he asked me if the French would confiscate the rents which he had a right to receive from the Town-House of Paris. “They will pay you,” said I, “exactly on the same day with Count Maurice de Saxe, who commands the French army;” and my prediction was literally fulfilled.

33

Louis XI in the course of his reign sent about four thousand of his subjects to the gallows, because he was not absolute, and wanted to be so. Louis XIV, after the affair of the duke de Lauzun, did not banish a single courtier, because he was absolute. In the reign of Charles II more than fifty persons of consequence lost their heads at London.

34

In the reign of Louis XIII there was not a single year passed without some faction or other. Louis the Just began by causing his prime minister to be assassinated. He suffered the cardinal de Richelieu, who was more cruel than himself, to bathe the scaffolds with blood.

Cardinal Mazarin, though placed in the same circumstances, did not put a single person to death. A foreigner as he was, he could not have supported himself by acts of cruelty. If Richelieu had had no factions to contend with, he would have raised the kingdom to the highest pitch of grandeur, because his cruelty, which proceeded from the haughtiness of his temper, having no object to employ it, would have suffered the natural greatness of his soul to operate in its full extent.

35

In a book full of profound reflections and ingenious flights of fancy, despotism is reckoned among the natural forms of government. The author, who was a great wit, surely meant to rally.

There is no government naturally despotic. There is no country in the world where the people say to one man: “Sir, we give your sacred majesty the power of taking our wives, our children, our goods, and our lives, and of causing us to be empaled according to your good pleasure and your adorable caprice.”

The Grand Turk swears on the Koran to observe the laws. He cannot put anyone to death without a decree of the divan, and a fetfa of the mufti. He is so little despotic that he can neither change the value of money, nor break the janissaries. It is not true that he is master of the effects of his subjects. He bestows lands, which are called “timariots,” in the same manner as fiefs were formerly bestowed.

36

Despotism is the abuse of monarchy, as anarchy is the abuse of a republican form of government. A sultan, who, without the forms, and in violation of the laws of justice, imprisons or murders his subjects, is a public robber, dignified with the title of Your Highness.

37

A modern author says there is more virtue in republics, and more honour in monarchies.

Honour is the desire of being honoured. To be a man of honour is to do nothing unworthy of honour. We cannot say of a recluse that he is a man of honour. That expression is applied to signify that degree of esteem which every member of society would have paid to his own person. We must settle the meaning of terms, without which we shall soon be involved in such confusion that we shall no longer be able to understand one another.

In the time of the Roman Republic, this desire of being honoured with statues, crowns of laurel, and triumphs rendered the Romans conquerors of the greater part of the world. The spirit of honour was kept alive by the empty form of a ceremony, by a leaf of laurel or parsley.

But when the republic was abolished, this kind of honour was likewise extinguished.

38

A republic is not founded on virtue: it is founded on the ambition of every citizen, which checks the ambition of others; on pride restraining pride; and on the desire of ruling, which will not suffer another to rule. Hence are formed laws which preserve as great an equality as possible. It is a society where the guests eat at the same table with an equal appetite, until a strong and voracious man comes, who takes all to himself, and leaves them only the crumbs.

39

Little machines do not succeed in the main, because their operations are interrupted by the friction of the wheels. The case is the same with states. China cannot be governed like the republic of Lucca.

40

Calvinism and Lutheranism are in danger in Germany; that country is full of great bishoprics, sovereign abbacies, and canonries, all proper for making conversions. A Protestant prince turns Catholic in order to become a bishop, or king of a certain country, as a princess does in order to get a husband.

41

If ever the Romish religion regains its former ascendency, it will be by the allurement of rich benefices, and by. means of the monks, the monks are troops that are perpetually fighting; the Protestants have no troops.

42

It is pretended that religions are made for climates. But Christianity has long existed in Asia. It began in Palestine, and it has penetrated as far as Norway. The Englishman, who said that religions had their birth in Asia, their grave in England, reasoned much better.

43

It must be owned there are some ceremonies and mysteries which cannot take place but in certain climates. People bathe in the Ganges at the new moons; but were they obliged to bathe in the Vistula in the month of January, this act of religion would not be long in force.

44

It is alleged that Mahomet’s law prohibiting the use of wine is a law of the climate of Arabia, because, in that country, wine would coagulate the blood, and water is refreshing. It would have been just as reasonable to make an eleventh commandment in Spain and Italy, enjoining the inhabitants to ply the bottle.

Mahomet did not forbid wine, because the Arabians loved water. It is said in the “Sonna,” that he forbade it, because he had been a witness of the shocking excesses which drunkenness occasioned.

45

All religious laws are not the effect of the nature of the climate. To eat, standing, a boiled lamb with lettuce, and to throw the remainder of it into the fire; not to eat a rabbit, because it has not a cloven foot, and because it chews the cud; to sprinkle one’s left ear with the blood of an animal: all these ceremonies have little connection with the nature of the climate.

46

If Leo X had permitted indulgences to be sold by the Augustine monks, who were wont to sell such merchandise, he would have had no Protestants. If Anne Boleyn had not been beautiful, England had still professed the Romish religion. To what was it owing that the Spaniards were not all Arians, and afterward Mahometans? To what was it owing that Carthage did not destroy Rome?

47

From one given event to deduce all the events in the world is a fine problem; but it belongs only to the Sovereign of the universe to solve it.

The End

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