# Memoirs of the Twentieth Century/Paris, Feb. 8, 1997

To the Lord High-Treasurer, &c.
MY LORD,
Paris, Feb. 8. 1997.
MY last from this place to your Lordship, was of December the sixteenth; and I have since, pursuant to your commands, given Mr. Secretary the trouble of two Letters, of the first and thirteenth of last Month. I now return, because you are pleased to have it so, to go on with the long account of Affairs here, since I have sufficiently answered all other particulars, relating to our Negotiations at this Court, in those two former ones.
When I broke off this subject in my last, I had acquainted your Lordship with the address of Mons. Meneville, and the present Ministers, in remedying the Disorders of their Predecessors conduct; and by Places, Preferments, and Pensions, to take off the edge of the factious Leaders of the People, and bring both the Clergy and Nobility, to the legal restraints of Duty and Allegiance to the King. I observed, that this had succeeded as it usually does, where Men mean nothing by their Clamours for the good of ​their Country, but to build up their own Fortunes, and make themselves considerable: but I must add here, that this would have been doing their work but by halves, if they had not cut off all occasion for new Complaints and Patriots, by remedying the evil that occasioned them. As the great diseases they laboured under, were the want of Trade and People, and scarcity of Money, frequent dearths of Bread-corn, the defrauding the Kingdom in the accounts of the Publick Money, and the extream Debaucheries of the Gentry; they endeavoured to remove them all, by severe Edicts against the Causes of these Grievances.
As their Trade and Manufactures had suffered by an idle affectation in the Nobility, of wearing and using every thing that was foreign, high Taxes were laid on all Commodities not of the growth of the Kingdom: and as his Majesty set an example to his Subjects, by observing this rule himself, as to wearing Apparel particularly, so no Person that had any Office under him, or that ever appeared at Court, was allowed to wear any thing of foreign growth. By this single point of management, the tide of the fashion was turned entirely in a ​new channel, to the great advantage of the French Manufactures, and to the saving immense sums of the Cash of the Kingdom, which used to go out to seed the pride and folly of the People of condition, to the utter impoverishing of the Poor.
The same care was taken to redress an evil that had gained ground extremely among the French Gentlemen, of travelling abroad. This, by a severe Tax of the fifth of all their Estates, and by being also discountenanced by the King, in a little time was quite laid aside; and remittances of near a million of Money prevented, besides a destructive importation of foreign fashions and luxury. At the same time as the long Plague, their unsuccessful War, and the Dearths and Confusions of the times that followed them, had made a vast consumption of their hands, and made their People, and especially their Gentlemen, very averse to marrying, and taking such an encumbrance on their Pleasures and Debaucheries upon them; an Edict was passed, by which no unmarried Person, if past thirty and under fifty, could hold any profitable employment, or Pension whatever; and all of them were taxed a fifth part of their yearly Income, if ​Gentlemen, and all others ten shillings a head. This was sufficiently strict, and yet the latter part of this Edict was more severe: for after remarking that it was unreasonable, he who ravishes a Woman, and only hurts her honour, shall be hanged; and he who debauches her by flattery, and ruins her Soul, shall be often admired by the Women, and envied by the Men, as a fine Gentleman; it enacts, That in all such cases, the Woman shall be entitled for life, on full proof of the fact, to the third part of the Person's Estate who debauches her.
Your Lordship may easily guess what a compleat alteration for the better this has produced in the Beau Monde, as well as the inferior People; and I am persuaded France, in half a Century, will owe one seventh part of its inhabitants to this cause; at least in conjunction with another Law, that soon followed it, by which severe Penalties were laid on all voluntary Abortions, or unwholesome Nurses; and freedom from several Taxes to all who had ten living Children, or a proportionable reward for all who had a smaller number, if above six.
​The next Evil they applied themselves to remove, was the frequent Dearths; which they also effectually remedied by taking off the Taxes on plowed Grounds, and laying them on all such Trades as are nourished by our Luxury, and prove unprofitable to the Commonwealth; as Perfumers, Confectioners, Embroiderers, Wig-makers, Vintners, Jewellers, Lacqueys, Lawyers, Toy-shops, Foreign Lace, and gold and silver Lace-shops; by which means numbers were kept to Agriculture and Husbandry.
At the same time they kept publick Granaries in all considerable Villages; by which means, by borrowing and saving from the plentiful Crops, like Joseph in Egypt, they have now near two years provision before hand, to supply their necessities, and relieve the low condition of the Poor in times of Famine, whenever this Judgment of the Almighty happens to visit this Nation, in vengeance for their sins.
The last evil this Ministry has prudently remedied, was the preventing the continual Frauds in the managing the Finances, and over-reaching the King and the Nation, in the Receipts and Disbursements of ​the Publick Money, and the Accounts of the national Taxes and Funds.
Judge, my Lord, what notions I must have, of his integrity and honour who is to read this, when I speak with abhorrence and detestation, of the vile arts these Financiers, and Bankers of the Treasures of the State, made use of to enrich themselves, and impoverish their Prince and their Country. For it is evident by the facts, that have since their disgrace been proved on them, and by the immense Fortunes they so suddenly raised, that there never were greater Robbers or Villains employed, under a careless and lavish King, and a cunning Ministry.
To prevent such base and dishonest management for ever, there was an excellent Edict passed, constituting seven Commissioners, with eighteen thousand Livres yearly Salaries to each of them, sworn to examine with the strictest care and fidelity, all publick Accounts of the Nation; and with their utmost industry, by their examining all Officers (from the highest to the lowest) on oath, to discover all errors. These Accounts, with all proper Vouchers annexed to them, they were obliged by the first of March, to publish and print annually for the ​publick view; with their notes and observations upon them, and to mention all errors found in them, and the several Officers who had committed them, whether by fraud or mistake. All such sums so discovered, the particular Officers and their Securities, were to make good; and the Commissioners also, to have the entire benefit of such sums, paid to them by the said Officers and their Securities.
But this did not end here, for if after the publishing and printing the said Accounts, any other Person should prove and make out, any fraud or mistake omitted by them; then such Person was to be adjudged the whole of the said Sum, as a reward for his diligence, half to be recovered from the Commissioners, and half from the offending Officer, who by fraud or corruption had passed it over.
By this means, it is hard to be believed with what honest severity, regularity, integrity, and œconomy, the Publick Finances here have been managed of late: while in other Nations, whoever robs a private Subject of five shillings, is hanged, and those who can with dexterity rob their Country of a Million, are honoured and rewarded, if not ennobled for it.
​If we add to this the publick Registry, for all Conveyances of Lands and Settlements, and Deeds affecting the real Estates of this Kingdom; I believe your Lordship will see in these Regulations, as great care and conduct shewn, to retrieve this People from all their misfortunes, as has been known in this Kingdom, since the days of Richlieu or Mazarine.
I shall now take leave of this part of my observations, and shall proceed to such others as I have not yet touched on; if possibly I can communicate any thing of this kind, that may deserve your notice.
And the first I shall mention is the low ebb of Religion in this Country, which is indeed in a very dead and languishing way, between the blind Infidelity of the Laity, and the cold indifference and want of Zeal in some, and the immoral and luxurious Lives of others of the Clergy.
As the first of these is greatly occasioned by the latter, so that, I fear, is too much to be charged to the conduct of the Court and the Ministry. For finding in the late contests with the Pope, that the Clergy universally preferred the interest of the Empire of the Vatican, to that of their own Country; it has been a constant maxim ever since, to sink their credit ​with the People, by encouraging them in a want of Zeal for Religion, and a scandalous looseness of Life and Morals, and preferring either the most lukewarm or the most luxurious and debauched among them, to all Sees, Abbeys, &c. in the gift of the Crown.
By this conduct, their influence on the Laity and the State, is perpetually sinking: and as such heads will probably prefer Men like themselves, to the Cures of Parishes in their several Diocesses, the credit and interest of the Clergy, and consequently of the Pope, must necessarily decrease; and all that they lose, must as naturally revert to the Crown, as the Power and Estates of Rebels, that are forfeited for Treason.
It is grown so much the fashion here, to treat them with contempt on all occasions, and despise them, that the great Men shut them out generally from their conversations; and even at their Tables they have always a Page or Valet de Chambre, to say Grace, (which for fashion's sake some of them keep up as an old custom in their Families) that they may not be disturbed by the Priest or the Friar.
And indeed, notwithstanding the general decay of Learning and Virtue, in the Ecclesiasticks of this Century, I believe there can hard​ly be found such notorious and flagrant instances of this nature, as in this Kingdom. Many of them are as nice and effeminate, as if, (as we read of the Clergy of Formosa, who are all Females,) they were entirely of a different sex from the Laity; or like the Prophetesses of Caria in Asia Minor, who, as Aristotle tells us, were bearded Women. But I am sure they live with such softness, nicety, and woman-like delicacy of manners, as shew their sense and notions of things, must be mean and sensual. Numbers of them are sunk and drowned, in the good Wine and Cheer of Paris; wallowing in the Bottle and the Dish, as the chief pleasure and joy of life, and are so given up to their bellies and gluttony, as if they thought our blessed Saviour was born at Bethlehem, because the word in Hebrew signifies, The House of Bread; and was designed to express thereby, that they should serve him chiefly on that account, and feed by him. Is it not a melancholy prospect, my Lord, to see the sacred repository of the divine Will, shut up from the eyes of the Laity, and confined to such despicable creatures, as stewards and dispensers of it to others?
​So far, indeed, they may be called faithful stewards of it, as they bestow its Treasures entirely on their neighbours, without keeping any share of it to themselves; being too often, and especially the Jesuits, in this case like Miners, who are perpetually employed to dig out the Riches of the Earth; for the use of the World, while they preserve not the least portion of it for their own service. The truth is, the pretended heads of this Church are not, as formerly, Men who by an eminence in Parts and Learning, and a Sanctity of Life and Manners, are chosen out as fit Overseers of the Christian Sheepfold, to increase their numbers, cure their disorders, and prevent their straying; but are picked out to disunite and disturb it, in hopes thereby to shake the foundations of the Papal Power. They are not, my Lord, so properly Archbishops of Paris, or Bishops of Auvranches, as Temporal Peers, and the Dukes and Barons of those places; who have these Preferments bestowed on them for life, as Pensions to oppose the Pope, and maintain the Quarrel of the Crown. How far true Religion can be served by such Creatures, or Learning, Virtue, and Piety, be kept up in this Kingdom, is ​easily foreseen; and especially, when neither the outward decencies of publick Preaching or Praying, or even appearing in their Churches, unless on great Festivals, is made use of to palliate their irregular Lives, and corrupted Morals.
A reflection, which while I make with sorrow and anguish of heart, on the State of the Church here, I cannot without pleasure and transport turn my eyes on our own Church; where we are so happy to see the greatest purity of Faith, joined with a primitive simplicity and sanctity of Manners, and an eminency in both these, made the surest road to Promotion and Preferment.
Another point of policy which the new Ministers have put in practice here, in relation to the Clergy, and which deserves to be locked up inter arcana Imperii, is, forbidding all polemical Works from the Press, or Discourses of that kind from the Pulpit. For as such Disputes and Party-wars of the Pen, have been ever observed to heat, and keep up the zeal and spirit of the Clergy, above all other things; such stimulative and awakening Medicines are by no means judged proper by, these State-Empiricks, for that Lethargy and drousy Stupidity, they ​find it their interest to keep the Ecclesiasticks in.
It is certain, by this means the peace and quiet of the State, as well as the Church, is the more secured, and many eminent Genius's employed in nobler pursuits, to the great advantage of the Commonwealth of Learning. But at the same time, this introduces a sensible decay and indifferency in all points of Faith, that lie like the Fortifications of Towns, on the Frontiers of a Country, where we are secure to have no War; mouldering, and falling away daily, being neglected, and ill maintained, in too profound a Peace.
Along with this part of their conduct they have joined another, and left in any future disputes with the Pope, they should want able Pens to defend the Rights of the Crown; they have in several Universities, and especially in the Sorbonne, appointed Salaries for learned King's Professors of Divinity; though indeed their true title should be, Professors of the King's Divinity. These are the best Pens and the ablest Men they have, who are retained, like Lawyers, to plead the Cause of France, against the Usurpations of the Papal See, as they have ​I often done, though never so successfully, as when they have had the Armies of the Crown for their Seconds.
The truth is, they have taken up such an aversion to Learning here, from the mischiefs it has occasioned, in their disputes with the Pope; that I am persuaded I could not do them a more agreeable piece of service, than to contrive a Plan to model all the Schools and Colleges in this Kingdom a-new, in such a manner that they should be entirely employed in teaching Children Nothing, educating them to Nothing, and breeding them up to read Nothing. By this means, they might have the rising Generation, ready to receive any impressions they pleased, unbyassed by the reigning prejudices in favour of the Pope's Supremacy. If I set up this Scheme here, I must aim to introduce the famous Chinese Sect of Bonzes, who assemble their Followers in the Fields, where every one is furnished with a pair of Drum-bones between his fingers; and whenever the Bonzes learnedly prove to them, that all the Opinions, Pleasures, Sorrows, Hopes, and Fears of this World are Xin, that is, (in their Language) Nothing, which word ends every sentence; the whole Croud rock ​a their Bodies to an extasy of transport, and rattle their Drum-bones, crying out in confirmation of their beloved Doctrine, Xin, Xin, Xin!
I must also of a certainty send for some Professors, from the Academy Gli Infecondi in Italy, who write Nothing; and for crouds of Spanish Schoolmen, German Poets, Dutch Divines, English Politicians, Muscovite Sea-Captains, Italian Patriots, Jewish Rabbies, and Turkish Dervises, who have above all Men the happy art of amusing others, and employing themselves in that amiable mystery, of writing, and thinking, and doing Nothing. We should have some trouble in watching carefully over a few bustling, inquisitive tempers, who are possessed with that devilish spirit, of doing, thinking, or writing something. But the usual croud of the School or the College, might be left to the conduct of their gentle, easy Genius, and by the amiable inactivity of their Indolence, would naturally arrive at Nothing. By such a model as this, great things might be done here, to drive out the impertinence of reading and study; and in a few years we might see this Reign, rival that of Lewis the seventeenth, when Learning, and Reli​gion, and Arts, were so happily banished that Kingdom; and Infidelity united all its divided Schisms and Parties, in one general League of Irreligion and Ignorance, against Superstition, Pedantry, and Priestcraft, or in other words, Piety, Virtue, and Knowledge.
But it is time to present your Lordship with some observations of a different nature, as to the Humour and Temper of these People. I formerly took notice of the prodigious Luxury that reigns here, amidst the confusion of their affairs; which shews it self in all the amusements and diversions of the better sort, in such an infinite variety of things, that it is impossible to describe the half of them. It would be very entertaining to write an History even of the Fashions, for the last five years I have resided here, and I am confident it would make a little folio, to go thro' them in all their different reigns and seasons. High Stays, low Stays, no Stays, short-waisted, long-waisted Stays; short, mid-leg, all-leg, no-leg Petticoats; broad Lace, narrow Lace, Flanders Lace, English Lace, Spanish Lace, no Lace, Fringes, Knottings, Edgings; High-heads, Low-heads, three Pinners, two Pinners, one ​Pinner; much Powder, all Powder, little Powder, no Powder; Mantua's with a Tail, want a Tail, false Tail; four Flounces, three Flounces, two Flounces, no Flounces; wide Sleeves, strait Sleeves, long Sleeves, short Sleeves; many Ribbons, all Ribbons, few Ribbons, broad Ribbons, narrow Ribbons, rich Ribbons, plain Ribbons, flowered Ribbons, stampt Ribbons, no Ribbons. Such a noble and important work as this, with the dates and rise of every Fashion, the Councils that decreed it, the Authors and Inventors, and the vast Revolutions it produced in the polite World; and dedicated to the lovely Dutchess of Monbazon, who is able, my Lord, to prescribe what Fashions she pleases, both to her own Sex and ours; would, I am sure, raise more Subscriptions here, than the Works of Cicero or Livy. I fancy an History of their Breakfasts at Paris, for these last thirty years, would be almost as diverting; for as the quickness and inconstancy of the fair Ladies Fancies, are ever on the wing for new Entertainments for us, it is comical to consider the various successions they have contrived, since the days of cold Meat and Wine of their Ancestors. How have these lovely Cooks rung the ​changes with Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate, Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea, backwards and forwards, sometimes drinking their Tea infused long in cold water, sometimes in hot; and when they were driven off the stage, what new scenes have they furnished out, between Sweetmeats and Creams, Tysans and Sherbets, Milk cooked in twenty different methods, Bitters for the Stomach of a thousand sorts, Wine mull'd and brew'd in several shapes, Jellies and Fruits of all kinds, Broths and Caudles drest up in various disguises, and Possets, Syllabubs, and Gruels, in as many; till at last they have returned to Manchets and Butter, with fresh Eggs and Whey, or Milk from the Cow, which their Fathers used about three hundred years ago, in Lewis the thirteenth's time.
One of the reigning Fashions at present is, in all their Assemblies, or Visiting-days, to entertain their Company with Consorts of the best Musick, and to perfume all the Apartments but the Anti-chambers, which are at the same time adorned with the most exquisite Pictures Great-Britain or Italy can furnish them with. I take this to be the most natural and agreeable method of receiving great People with respect, that can be thought ​of; for besides regaling you with many kinds of Wines and Sweetmeats, almost all the Senses are gratified at once, and the everlasting, unmeaning rhapsody of Talk, that prevails in mixt Conversations here, is removed; and the Ear, Eyes, Taste, and Smell, entertained in the noblest manner. If your Lordship will allow me to mention one reigning Fashion more, that seems established here, I shall detain you no longer on this subject; and that is, the keeping Mutes in all great houses, which they generally import from Turkey at excessive rates, and employ as Valet de Chambres and Waiters at Table. I fancy this humour is likely to reach some of their neighbours in time: and indeed, where half the World act, and the other half talk things, that ought to be buried in everlasting silence, I wonder it has not been introduced among us long since. In some Provinces of France this has obtained so far, that they as commonly cut out the Tongues of Infants, as in Italy they make them Eunuchs; and the prices for them run so high, these having the advantage of hearing, which many of those that are imported want, that it is probable in time, the number of Mutes among ​Servants, will bear a higher proportion than they do in the letters of the alphabet. In the mean time, to encourage us to give into this practice in our Country, it is to be considered, we may furnish ourselves much cheaper with very tolerable Mutes from both our Universities; who besides, are generally happy in a more grave and sheepish Modesty than these Foreigners, and can sometimes also, on an extraordinary occasion, utter an odd monosyllable now and then, which is rather an advantage in my opinion, than otherwise.
I am sorry, my Lord, that I must lengthen this tedious Letter with two pieces of news, neither of which, I fear, will be agreeable. The one is the death of Mons. Le Fevre, whom your Lordship honoured formerly with managing some business for you here. He was a chearful, well-natured, honest Man, but he talked immoderately; and though he shewed a great deal of wit in his Conversation, he used to laugh so much at his own Jests, that his mirth was seldom accompanied with Sarah's blessing, who said, God had made her to laugh, so that all that heard her laughed with her. I mention this the ra​ther, because I was with him the day he died; and as he had raised his fortune from nothing, by your Lordship's bounty, so he spent it extravagantly, and died almost for want. He took notice of this rise and fall in his Circumstances, and desired me to tell your Lordship, he died your humble Servant; and that for the change in his fortune, it was but in the way of the World, and according to the old axiom in Philosophy, Ex nihilo nihil fit.
But I have another loss to acquaint your Lordship with, which will touch you more nearly; and that is the Danish Envoy here, Mr. Plessenburg, who died last night of an Apoplexy, as he sat at supper among a great many friends. He had no Will by him, to the ruin of a numerous Family; for his whole Estate goes to his eldest Son, a Man not worthy even to inherit his Name. Your Lordship knew him personally so long, and lived so intimately with him, when he was Envoy at our Court, that I need not draw his Character. He served his Prince faithfully, and was an honour to his service, and a credit to his Country; and indeed, we may say in this case, that the Servant was greater than his Master.
​He was a most religious Observer of his Promise, of which he gave a glorious instance lately; when being pressed by the Nuncio to prefer a friend of the Society to a Troop in his Regiment, and put by one he had promised it to, he told him, he would not break his word to serve the true friends of Religion, and much less to serve its real enemies, the Jesuits. 'Twas an answer worthy of Mr. Plessenburgh, of whom I cannot say a greater thing, than that he had the honour of your Lordship's friendship, and deserved it.
In my last-dispatch to Mr. Secretary, I gave so full an account of the state of my Negotiations here, and the high professions they make of their obligations to his Majesty, for interesting himself in the affair of the Inquisition; that I need not report a matter to your Lordship, which I know Mr. Secretary, with his usual care, has long since laid before you.
I expect very soon to have an Audience of the King, in which I hope to find their measures concerted and resolved on, pursuant to what I was instructed to lay before them, for their approbation. When it is over, I shall give your Lordship an exact ac​count of it, and what is likely to be the result of these counsels, which you so happily direct, and so worthily preside in.
By our last Letters by the way of Vienna, we have received fresh assurances, that his Imperial Majesty is so well recovered of his asthmatick disorder, that he has ventured out to take the air in the Park, and to see his Hawks, (which the Grand Seignior lately sent him as a present from Constantinople) kill two or three brace of Woodcocks. However this may be relished at Rome, I am sure it is very agreeable news at Paris, and I hope will be as much so at London; where I wish you all the Honour and Happiness you deserve, and am, with the greatest deference and regard,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's &c.
HERBERT.