CHAPTER XXI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

§ 1. Of all the communities of Europe, there is none in which war and trade have been in more close and constant alliance than in France-none in which the effects of that alliance in arresting the progress of agriculture, and in preventing the development of the treasures of the earth, have been more fully exhibited. Abroad, from the days of Charlemagne to those of Waterloo, she has been almost unceasingly engaged in arresting the motion of society among her neighbors - wasting, in the effort so to do, the larger portion of the mental and physical force of her own population. At home, her people have been deprived of all right to determine for whom they would work, and what should be their reward-while held, at all times, liable to be taxed at the pleasure of the sovereign for the service of the state. Always poor, her rulers have, with one hand, farmed to others the privilege of taking, almost at discretion, the property of their subjects; while, with the other, they have, for money paid to them in hand, granted exemptions from the payment of contributions. At one moment, they have sold titles, carrying with them such exemptions, and at another, they have annulled the grants. That accomplished, the titles have been resold thus making the purchasers pay twice, and sometimes even thrice, over, for the same privilege. Thus, Henry IV. made such sales in 1593, recalled them, without repayment, in 1598, and then resold them in 1606. His successor, Louis XIII., continued to sell them until 1638; and then, in 1640, annulled all the grants of the previous thirty years. Louis XIV. continued the trade, selling privileges, and reselling, in 1661, titles that had been annulled in 1640 — and then, three years later, annulled and reannulled "all the letters, or confirmations of nobility, granted since 1634."*

* CLEMENT: Histoire de Colbert, chap. v.

Bad as was all this, still worse was their conduct in reference to the currency. Philip the Fair changed the weight of the coin of the realm more than a hundred times in the course of his reign; and no less than thirteen times in a single year. His successors, almost to the date of the Revolution, followed his example-buying gold and silver at low prices, and selling them at high ones; and thus affording proof of the fact that dishonesty and meanness are the almost inseparable companions of arbitrary power.

§ 2. That the sovereigns of so magnificent a country should have found themselves compelled to the adoption of measures such as above are indicated, is among the extraordinary facts of history; and yet it finds its explanation in the uniform tendency of French policy, to give to trade the mastery over commerce. With slight exception, such was the object of all the measures of the House of Valois, which for almost three centuries* presided so unhappily over the destinies of France. Under John,† were established numerous interior custom-houses, at which were collected, on all merchandise passing from province to province, the same duties that would have been payable upon similar commodities coming from distant countries; while privileges of every kind were granted to foreign traders engaged in the introduction of their respective wares, to be exchanged against the rude products of the soil. Commerce being thus sacrificed to trade, and mental faculty being but little developed, there prevailed throughout the kingdom the most entire ignorance of the simplest mechanic arts; while everywhere around, in the cities of the Netherlands and Germany, of Italy and of Spain, both art and science were. making the most rapid progress.

Directly the reverse of this had been the policy of England. At the moment when John was extending the dominion of trade, and thus lessening the power to maintain commerce, Edward III. was inviting Flemish artisans into England, and limiting the powers of the foreigners by whom the English products had till then, to so great an extent, been monopolized. Such, too, having been the general tendency of the measures of their successors, the difference in the result is seen in the facts, that the records of the House of Valois commencing with the English wars and ending with those

* 1328 to 1589.

† 1356.

of religion-constitute almost the most repulsive portion of French history, and close with a state of society in which the laborer was enslaved, and brute force furnished the only law; whereas, in those of England we find the history of a people gradually advancing towards freedom, and presenting to view, at the close of the period above referred to, the community in which were born and educated, the Hampdens and the Pyms, the Winthrops and the Williamses the men who at home set limits to the power of the crown, and those who, abroad, laid the foundation of the great republic of modern times.

In the one, we find the States-General steadily declining in its influence; whereas, in the other, we mark a gradual growth in the power of Parliament to control the affairs of state.* Such were the different effects of policies, the one of which looked to increasing the power of trade, while the other was specially directed to the extension of commerce.

§ 3. The example above described, as having been set by the sovereigns, was followed in every quarter of the kingdom, and in all departments of employment. More than in any other part of Europe did the parasitic races there exist in numbers and in force. Offices of every description were sold; and, not unfrequently, three or four persons held the same charge, as first, second, third, or fourth in order-each and all busily engaged in collecting from the people the revenue required for their support. Local taxes were almost innumerable, while manufacturers surrounded themselves with regulations, looking to the prevention of domestic competition for the purchase of raw materials, or for the sale of manufactured goods. Of the total product of labor, so large a portion was absorbed in its passage from the producer to the consumer, that while the one could obtain but little cloth for his food, the other could have but little food in exchange for his cloth. Commerce having, therefore, but slight existence, the nation presented to view little more than two great classes, the one of which lived and labored in wretchedness, even when its members failed to perish of famine and pestilence-while the other

The last assembly of the States-General, prior to that which occurred in 1788, was in 1605, when the popular branch of the English Parliament was rapidly acquiring the power whose existence was soon after so clearly manifested.

revelled in barbaric luxury. In no part of Europe was the magnificence of the few so great; but in none was the misery of the many so complete; and at no period had the contrast thus presented been much more perfect, than when, in 1661, Colbert was called to the management of the finances of the kingdom.

The system of internal intercourse then existing greatly resembled that of Germany at the opening of the present century – custom-houses being everywhere found on the borders of the provinces, obstructing the passage of men and things throughout the state. Anxious to remove these obstacles to commerce, Colbert, as far as then was possible, transferred them to the frontiers; and thus established freedom of circulation for all commodities, domestic or foreign, whenever these latter should have come within the limits of the kingdom.-Next, he sought to improve the means of transportation; and the canals of Orleans, Briare, and Languedoc remain to attest his care in this regard. Further — desiring to promote commerce between man and man, by re-establishing the various industries that had so nearly perished during the long period of the civil wars-he imposed heavy duties on foreign manufactures generally; while exerting himself in all directions to naturalize among his countrymen the raw materials needed for the proper development of their agriculture, and the skill required for their conversion into commodities fitted to serve the purposes of man.

Throughout the reign of Louis XIV., political centralization tended to increase, but the system of his great minister looked towards social and commercial decentralization; and to his measures is largely due the fact, that agriculture, manufactures, and commerce have made the progress since exhibited. "Taken altogether," says M. Blanqui, "they compose the finest politico-economical edifice ever erected by any government. Alone, among the ruins of the past," as he continues, "it has remained standing, and it towers now at its greatest height among our institutions, which, Lotwithstanding the shock of revolutions, have never lost the stamp of his imposing originality. Colbert," as he further adds, "opened the way for the national labor in a manner at once wise and regular," and to his measures were due the facts that France "ceased to be exclusively agricultural, and became

enriched by the new value given to her land, and to the labors of her people."*

§ 4. Repeating, however, in his system, the error of the early Parliaments of England, Colbert prohibited the export of raw products of the soil. Like them, he sought to aid the agricultural interest, by bringing the artisan to the neighborhood of the farmer, and thus relieving the land from the heavy tax of transportation; but, to the measures adopted with that view he added others, by which the farmer was interdicted from going with his products to the distant artisan. By the one, he provided for the gradual removal of the obstacles standing between the producer and the consumer; but when by the other he prevented the free export of the surplus corn, he thereby at once, and largely, augmented the existing obstacles — stopping the circulation of food, and reducing the farmer to a condition of dependence on the manufacturer. Time, and further experience, would have corrected this, had peace been maintained, but such, unhappily, was not to be the case. Scarcely had his system begun to operate, when his master commenced the movement against the Protestants which terminated, twelve or fifteen years later, (1685,) in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. During all that period, two millions of the most intelligent and best instructed, and essenHistoire de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 6. M. Blanqui professes himself opposed to the principle of protection, yet can he not refrain from expressing his admiration of its results. So is it, too, with Mr. J. B. Say, who tells his readers that if "France has now the most beautiful manufactures of silks and of woollens in the world, she is probably indebted for them to the wise policy of Colbert."

No one who has studied the history of that great man can hesitate about agreeing in the views expressed in the annual address of the president of the Academie des Sciences Morals et Politiques M. Amadée Thierry — in January 1856, as follows:

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The founder of the protective system understood commercial and industrial freedom; he loved it, but he desired that it should be possible, and that it should be so it was necessary that commerce and industry should first exist. They were born among us, and they have grown by help of that happy compound of protective authority and gradual emancipation which characterized the system of Colbert, where, whatever may be said to the contrary, there is nothing absolute or exclusive where time is the great agent of freedom."

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"Louis XIV. might with truth and justice say that, in giving him Colbert, God had done much for the prosperity and glory of his reign. France might add, that she owes to his wise counsels the wonderful development of her industry; and that this, in turn, owes to them the strength which now permits it to reduce the barriers by which it has been protected."