r. Shippen, who practised the trade of a locksmith at Greenwich, dined every day, during his short stays in Paris, at the Sign of the Reine Pédauque, in the company of his landlord and of my good master, Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard.
That day, at dessert, having called for a bottle of wine as was his custom, lighted his pipe, and drawn from his pocket the London Gazette, he set himself peaceably to smoke, drink, and read; then folding his paper, and placing his pipe on the edge of the table, he said:
"Gentlemen, the Government is defeated."
"Oh!" said my good master, "it is of no consequence."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Shippen, "it is a matter of consequence, for the former ministry being Tory, the new one will be Whig, and moreover, everything that happens in England is of importance."
"Sir," replied my good master, "We have seen greater changes than that in France. We have seen the four officials known as Secretaries of State replaced by six or seven Councils of ten members apiece, and the Secretaries of State hewn in ten pieces and then re-established in their original shape. At each of these changes there were some who swore that all was lost, and others that all was saved. And rhymes were made about it all. For my part, I take little interest in what is done in the King's cabinet, for I notice that the course of life is in no way changed, and after reforms men are as before, selfish, avaricious, cowardly, cruel, stupid and furious by turns, and there is always a nearly even number of births, marriages, cuckolds, and gallowsbirds, in which is made manifest the beautiful ordering of our society. This condition is stable, sir, and nothing could shake it, for it is founded on human misery and imbecility, and those are foundations which will never be wanting. The whole edifice gains from them a strength which defies the efforts of the worst of princes, and of the ignorant crowd of officials who assist them."
My father, who, larding-pin in hand, was listening to this conversation, made this amendment with deferential firmness: that good ministers are to be found, and that he could remember one, who had recently died, as the author of a very wise regulation protecting cooks against the devouring ambitions of butchers and confectioners.
"That may be, Monsieur Tournebroche," retorted my good master, "and it is a matter to discuss with confectioners. But what is necessary to consider is that empires subsist, not by the wisdom of certain Secretaries of State, but by the needs of millions of men, who, to live, work at all sorts of lowly and ignoble arts such as industry, commerce, agriculture, war, and navigation. These individual hardships make up what is called the greatness of a people, and neither prince nor ministers have a part in them."
"You are mistaken, sir," said the Englishman, "ministers do their part by making laws, of which a single one may enrich or ruin the nation."
"Oh, as for that," replied the Abbé, "it is a risk that must be run. Since the affairs of the State are so widespread that the intelligence of a single man cannot embrace them, we must forgive ministers for working blindly thereat, and harbour no resentment against the good or evil they do, but suppose that they moved as in a game of blind-man's buff. Moreover, this evil and this good would seem less to us if estimated without superstition, and I doubt, sir, if a general order could have the effect that you mention. I judge by the women of the town, who are themselves alone, in a year, the object of more regulations than are put forth in a century for all other classes in the kingdom, and who, none the less, carry on their business with an exactitude based on the forces of nature. They laugh at the simple blackening which a magistrate named Nicodème[4] meditates in regard to them, and make fun of Monsieur Baiselance, the mayor[5] who has formed, along with several attorneys and treasury officials, an impotent association for their ruin. I can tell you that Catherine, the lace-maker, is ignorant of the very name of Baiselance, and that she will remain ignorant of it until her end, which will be a Christian one—at least I hope so. And I infer that all the laws with which a minister swells his portfolio, are but useless papers which neither enable us to live nor prevent us from living."
"Monsieur Coignard," said the locksmith from Greenwich, "it is easy to see by the baseness of your talk that you are accustomed to servitude. You would speak differently of statesmen and laws if you had, as I have, the happiness to enjoy a free Government."
"Mr. Shippen," said the Abbé, "true liberty is that of a soul enfranchised from the vanities of this world. As for public liberty, I do not care a cherrystone for it! It is an illusion which flatters the vanity of the ignorant."
"You confirm me in the idea," said Mr. Shippen, "that the French are mere monkeys."
"Allow me," said my father, brandishing his larding-pin, "there are lions also to be found amongst them."
"Only citizens fail you then," retorted Mr. Shippen. "All the world discusses public matters in the Tuileries Gardens, without one reasonable notion resulting from their squabbles. Your population is but a turbulent wild-beast show."
"Sir," said my good master, "it is true that when human societies attain to a certain degree of refinement, they turn aside from the manners of a menagerie, and that it is evidence of progress to live in a cage, instead of wandering miserably in the woods. And this tendency is common to all the countries of Europe."
"Sir," said the Greenwich locksmith, "England is no menagerie, for she has a Parliament on which her Ministers depend."
"Sir," said the Abbé, "it may be that one day France will also have Ministers obedient to a Parliament. Better still. Time brings many changes in the constitution of empires, and one can fancy that, in a century or two, France may adopt popular government. But, sir, secretaries of State, who count for little in our day, will then no longer count for anything. For instead of depending on the King, from whom they derive their period and power, they will be subject to public opinion, and will share its instability. It is to be remarked that statesmen only exercise their power, with any force, in absolute monarchies, as is seen in the example of Joseph the son of Jacob, Pharaoh's Minister, and in that of Haman, Minister to Ahasuerus, who played a great rôle in the government; the first in Egypt, the second among the Persians. It needed the coincidence of a strongly established crown and a weak king, in France, to strengthen the arm of a Richelieu. Under popular government, ministers will become so impotent that even their wickedness and stupidity will do harm no more.
"They will receive from the general assemblies only an uncertain and precarious authority; unable to indulge in far-flung hopes and vast schemes, they will spend their ephemeral existence in wretched expedients. They will grow jaundiced in the unhappy effort to read their orders on the five hundred faces of a crowd, ignorant and at cross-purposes; they will languish in restless impotence. They will become unused to foresee anything or prepare anything, and they will only study intrigue and falsehood. They will fall from so low that their fall will do them no harm, and their names, chalked on the walls by little scribbling school-boys, will make the bourgeois laugh."
Mr. Shippen shrugged his shoulders at this speech.
"It's possible," he said, "I can well enough imagine the French in such a state."
"Oh," said my good master, "in that state the world will go on its way. We shall still have to eat, it is the great need which gives rise to all others."
Mr. Shippen said, shaking out his pipe:
"In the meanwhile they promise us a minister who will favour the farmers, but who will ruin trade if he has his way. I must look to it, for I am a locksmith at Greenwich, and I shall call all the locksmiths together and address them."
He put his pipe in his pocket and went out without saying good-night to us.