In Paris, where men of thought
and study bear a certain likeness
to one another, living as they
do in a common centre, you must
have met with several resembling
Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance
we are about to make at a moment
when he is head of a bureau in
one of our most important ministries.
At this period he was forty years
old, with gray hair of so pleasing
a shade that women might at a
pinch fall in love with it for
it softened a somewhat melancholy
countenance, blue eyes full of
fire, a skin that was still fair,
though rather ruddy and touched
here and there with strong red
marks; a forehead and nose a
la Louis XV., a serious mouth,
a tall figure, thin, or perhaps
wasted, like that of a man just
recovering from illness, and
finally, a bearing that was midway
between the indolence of a mere
idler and the thoughtfulness
of a busy man. If this portrait
serves to depict his character,
a sketch of this man's dress
will bring it still further into
relief. Rabourdin wore habitually
a blue surcoat, a white cravat,
a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre,
black trousers without straps,
gray silk stockings and low shoes.
Well-shaved, and with his stomach
warmed by a cup of coffee, he
left home at eight in the morning
with the regularity of clock-work,
always passing along the same
streets on his way to the ministry:
so neat was he, so formal, so
starched that he might have been
taken for an Englishman on the
road to his embassy.
From these general signs you
will readily discern a family
man, harassed by vexations in
his own household, worried by
annoyances at the ministry, yet
philosopher enough to take life
as he found it; an honest man,
loving his country and serving
it, not concealing from himself
the obstacles in the way of those
who seek to do right; prudent,
because he knew men; exquisitely
courteous with women, of whom
he asked nothing,--a man full
of acquirements, affable with
his inferiors, holding his equals
at great distance, and dignified
towards his superiors. At the
epoch of which we write, you
would have noticed in him the
coldly resigned air of one who
has buried the illusions of his
youth and renounced every secret
ambition; you would have recognized
a discouraged, but not disgusted
man, one who still clings to
his first projects,--more perhaps
to employ his faculties than
in the hope of a doubtful success.
He was not decorated with any
order, and always accused himself
of weakness for having worn that
of the Fleur-de-lis in the early
days of the Restoration.
The life of
this man was marked by certain
mysterious peculiarities.
He had never known his father;
his mother, a woman to whom luxury
was everything, always elegantly
dressed, always on pleasure bent,
whose beauty seemed to him miraculous
and whom he very seldom saw,
left him little at her death;
but she had given him that too
common and incomplete education
which produces so much ambition
and so little ability. A few
days before his mother's death,
when he was just sixteen, he
left the Lycee Napoleon to enter
as supernumerary a government
office, where an unknown protector
had provided him with a place.
At twenty-two years of age Rabourdin
became under-head-clerk; at twenty-five,
head-clerk, or, as it was termed,
head of the bureau. From that
day the hand that assisted the
young man to start in life was
never felt again in his career,
except as to a single circumstance;
it led him, poor and friendless,
to the house of a Monsieur Leprince,
formerly an auctioneer, a widower
said to be extremely rich, and
father of an only daughter. Xavier
Rabourdin fell desperately in
love with Mademoiselle Celestine
Leprince, then seventeen years
of age, who had all the matrimonial
claims of a dowry of two hundred
thousand francs. Carefully educated
by an artistic mother, who transmitted
her own talents to her daughter,
this young lady was fitted to
attract distinguished men. Tall,
handsome, and finely-formed,
she was a good musician, drew
and painted, spoke several languages,
and even knew something of science,--a
dangerous advantage, which requires
a woman to avoid carefully all
appearance of pedantry. Blinded
by mistaken tenderness, the mother
gave the daughter false ideas
as to her probable future; to
the maternal eyes a duke or an
ambassador, a marshal of France
or a minister of State, could
alone give her Celestine her
due place in society. The young
lady had, moreover, the manners,
language, and habits of the great
world. Her dress was richer and
more elegant than was suitable
for an unmarried girl; a husband
could give her nothing more than
she now had, except happiness.
Besides all such indulgences,
the foolish spoiling of the mother,
who died a year after the girl's
marriage, made a husband's task
all the more difficult. What
coolness and composure of mind
were needed to rule such a woman!
Commonplace suitors held back
in fear. Xavier Rabourdin, without
parents and without fortune other
than his situation under government,
was proposed to Celestine by
her father. She resisted for
a long time; not that she had
any personal objection to her
suitor, who was young, handsome,
and much in love, but she shrank
from the plain name of Madame
Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince
assured his daughter that Xavier
was of the stock that statesmen
came of. Celestine answered that
a man named Rabourdin would never
be anything under the government
of the Bourbons, etc. Forced
back to his intrenchments, the
father made the serious mistake
of telling his daughter that
her future husband was certain
of becoming Rabourdin "de something
or other" before he reached the
age of admission to the Chamber.
Xavier was soon to be appointed
Master of petitions, and general-secretary
at his ministry. From these lower
steps of the ladder the young
man would certainly rise to the
higher ranks of the administration,
possessed of a fortune and a
name bequeathed to him in a certain
will of which he, Monsieur Leprince,
was cognizant. On this the marriage
took place.
Rabourdin and his wife believed
in the mysterious protector to
whom the auctioneer alluded.
Led away by such hopes and by
the natural extravagance of happy
love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin
spent nearly one hundred thousand
francs of their capital in the
first five years of married life.
By the end of this time Celestine,
alarmed at the non-advancement
of her husband, insisted on investing
the remaining hundred thousand
francs of her dowry in landed
property, which returned only
a slender income; but her future
inheritance from her father would
amply repay all present privations
with perfect comfort and ease
of life. When the worthy auctioneer
saw his son-in-law disappointed
of the hopes they had placed
on the nameless protector, he
tried, for the sake of his daughter,
to repair the secret loss by
risking part of his fortune in
a speculation which had favourable
chances of success. But the poor
man became involved in one of
the liquidations of the house
of Nucingen, and died of grief,
leaving nothing behind him but
a dozen fine pictures which adorned
his daughter's salon, and a few
old-fashioned pieces of furniture,
which she put in the garret.
Eight years of fruitless expectation
made Madame Rabourdin at last
understand that the paternal
protector of her husband must
have died, and that his will,
if it ever existed, was lost
or destroyed. Two years before
her father's death the place
of chief of division, which became
vacant, was given, over her husband's
head, to a certain Monsieur de
la Billardiere, related to a
deputy of the Right who was made
minister in 1823. It was enough
to drive Rabourdin out of the
service; but how could he give
up his salary of eight thousand
francs and perquisites, when
they constituted three fourths
of his income and his household
was accustomed to spend them?
Besides, if he had patience for
a few more years he would then
be entitled to a pension. What
a fall was this for a woman whose
high expectations at the opening
of her life were more or less
warranted, and one who was admitted
on all sides to be a superior
woman.
Madame Rabourdin had justified
the expectations formed of Mademoiselle
Leprince; she possessed the elements
of that apparent superiority
which pleases the world; her
liberal education enabled her
to speak to every one in his
or her own language; her talents
were real; she showed an independent
and elevated mind; her conversation
charmed as much by its variety
and ease as by the oddness and
originality of her ideas. Such
qualities, useful and appropriate
in a sovereign or an ambassadress,
were of little service to a household
compelled to jog in the common
round. Those who have the gift
of speaking well desire an audience;
they like to talk, even if they
sometimes weary others. To satisfy
the requirements of her mind
Madame Rabourdin took a weekly
reception-day and went a great
deal into society to obtain the
consideration her self-love was
accustomed to enjoy. Those who
know Parisian life will readily
understand how a woman of her
temperament suffered, and was
martyrized at heart by the scantiness
of her pecuniary means. No matter
what foolish declarations people
make about money, they one and
all, if they live in Paris, must
grovel before accounts, do homage
to figures, and kiss the forked
hoof of the golden calf. What
a problem was hers! twelve thousand
francs a year to defray the costs
of a household consisting of
father, mother, two children,
a chambermaid and cook, living
on the second floor of a house
in the rue Duphot, in an apartment
costing two thousand francs a
year. Deduct the dress and the
carriage of Madame before you
estimate the gross expenses of
the family, for dress precedes
everything; then see what remains
for the education of the children
(a girl of eight and a boy of
nine, whose maintenance must
cost at least two thousand francs
besides) and you will find that
Madame Rabourdin could barely
afford to give her husband thirty
francs a month. That is the position
of half the husbands in Paris,
under penalty of being thought
monsters.
Thus it was that this woman
who believed herself destined
to shine in the world was condemned
to use her mind and her faculties
in a sordid struggle, fighting
hand to hand with an account-book.
Already, terrible sacrifice of
pride! she had dismissed her
man-servant, not long after the
death of her father. Most women
grow weary of this daily struggle;
they complain but they usually
end by giving up to fate and
taking what comes to them; Celestine's
ambition, far from lessening,
only increased through difficulties,
and led her, when she found she
could not conquer them, to sweep
them aside. To her mind this
complicated tangle of the affairs
of life was a Gordian knot impossible
to untie and which genius ought
to cut. Far from accepting the
pettiness of middle-class existence,
she was angry at the delay which
kept the great things of life
from her grasp,--blaming fate
as deceptive. Celestine sincerely
believed herself a superior woman.
Perhaps she was right; perhaps
she would have been great under
great circumstances; perhaps
she was not in her right place.
Let us remember there are as
many varieties of woman as there
are of man, all of which society
fashions to meet its needs. Now
in the social order, as in Nature's
order, there are more young shoots
than there are trees, more spawn
than full-grown fish, and many
great capacities (Athanase Granson,
for instance) which die withered
for want of moisture, like seeds
on stony ground. There are, unquestionably,
household women, accomplished
women, ornamental women, women
who are exclusively wives, or
mothers, or sweethearts, women
purely spiritual or purely material;
just as there are soldiers, artists,
artisans, mathematicians, poets,
merchants, men who understand
money, or agriculture, or government,
and nothing else. Besides all
this, the eccentricity of events
leads to endless cross-purposes;
many are called and few are chosen
is the law of earth as of heaven.
Madame Rabourdin conceived herself
fully capable of directing a
statesman, inspiring an artist,
helping an inventor and pushing
his interests, or of devoting
her powers to the financial politics
of a Nucingen, and playing a
brilliant part in the great world.
Perhaps she was only endeavouring
to excuse to her own mind a hatred
for the laundry lists and the
duty of overlooking the housekeeping
bills, together with the petty
economies and cares of a small
establishment. She was superior
only in those things where it
gave her pleasure to be so. Feeling
as keenly as she did the thorns
of a position which can only
be likened to that of Saint-Laurence
on his grid-iron, is it any wonder
that she sometimes cried out?
So, in her paroxysms of thwarted
ambition, in the moments when
her wounded vanity gave her terrible
shooting pains, Celestine turned
upon Xavier Rabourdin. Was it
not her husband's duty to give
her a suitable position in the
world? If she were a man she
would have had the energy to
make a rapid fortune for the
sake of rendering an adored wife
happy! She reproached him for
being too honest a man. In the
mouth of some women this accusation
is a charge of imbecility. She
sketched out for him certain
brilliant plans in which she
took no account of the hindrances
imposed by men and things; then,
like all women under the influence
of vehement feeling, she became
in thought as Machiavellian as
Gondreville, and more unprincipled
than Maxime de Trailles. At such
times Celestine's mind took a
wide range, and she imagined
herself at the summit of her
ideas.
When these
fine visions first began Rabourdin,
who saw the
practical side, was cool. Celestine,
much grieved, thought her husband
narrow- minded, timid, unsympathetic;
and she acquired, insensibly,
a wholly false opinion of the
companion of her life. In the
first place, she often extinguished
him by the brilliancy of her
arguments. Her ideas came to
her in flashes, and she sometimes
stopped him short when he began
an explanation, because she did
not choose to lose the slightest
sparkle of her own mind. From
the earliest days of their marriage
Celestine, feeling herself beloved
and admired by her husband, treated
him without ceremony; she put
herself above conjugal laws and
the rules of private courtesy
by expecting love to pardon all
her little wrong-doings; and,
as she never in any way corrected
herself, she was always in the
ascendant. In such a situation
the man holds to the wife very
much the position of a child
to a teacher when the latter
cannot or will not recognize
that the mind he has ruled in
childhood is becoming mature.
Like Madame de Stael, who exclaimed
in a room full of people, addressing,
as we may say, a greater man
than herself, "Do you know you
have really said something very
profound!" Madame Rabourdin said
of her husband: "He certainly
has a good deal of sense at times." Her
disparaging opinion of him gradually
appeared in her behavior through
almost imperceptible motions.
Her attitude and manners expressed
a want of respect. Without being
aware of it she injured her husband
in the eyes of others; for in
all countries society, before
making up its mind about a man,
listens for what his wife thinks
of him, and obtains from her
what the Genevese term "pre-advice."
When Rabourdin
became aware of the mistakes
which love had
led him to commit it was too
late,--the groove had been cut;
he suffered and was silent. Like
other men in whom sentiments
and ideas are of equal strength,
whose souls are noble and their
brains well balanced, he was
the defender of his wife before
the tribunal of his own judgment;
he told himself that nature doomed
her to a disappointed life through
his fault; HIS; she was like
a thoroughbred English horse,
a racer harnessed to a cart full
of stones; she it was who suffered;
and he blamed himself. His wife,
by dint of constant repetition,
had inoculated him with her own
belief in herself. Ideas are
contagious in a household; the
ninth thermidor, like so many
other portentous events, was
the result of female influence.
Thus, goaded by Celestine's ambition,
Rabourdin had long considered
the means of satisfying it, though
he hid his hopes, so as to spare
her the tortures of uncertainty.
The man was firmly resolved to
make his way in the administration
by bringing a strong light to
bear upon it. He intended to
bring about one of those revolutions
which send a man to the head
of either one party or another
in society; but being incapable
of so doing in his own interests,
he merely pondered useful thoughts
and dreamed of triumphs won for
his country by noble means. His
ideas were both generous and
ambitious; few officials have
not conceived the like; but among
officials as among artists there
are more miscarriages than births;
which is tantamount to Buffon's
saying that "Genius is patience."
Placed in a position where
he could study French administration
and observe its mechanism, Rabourdin
worked in the circle where his
thought revolved, which, we may
remark parenthetically, is the
secret of much human accomplishment;
and his labor culminated finally
in the invention of a new system
for the Civil Service of government.
Knowing the people with whom
he had to do, he maintained the
machine as it then worked, so
it still works and will continue
to work; for everybody fears
to remodel it, though no one,
according to Rabourdin, ought
to be unwilling to simplify it.
In his opinion, the problem to
be resolved lay in a better use
of the same forces. His plan,
in its simplest form, was to
revise taxation and lower it
in a way that should not diminish
the revenues of the State, and
to obtain, from a budget equal
to the budgets which now excite
such rabid discussion, results
that should be two-fold greater
than the present results. Long
practical experience had taught
Rabourdin that perfection is
brought about in all things by
changes in the direction of simplicity.
To economize is to simplify.
To simplify means to suppress
unnecessary machinery; removals
naturally follow. His system,
therefore, depended on the weeding
out of officials and the establishment
of a new order of administrative
offices. No doubt the hatred
which all reformers incur takes
its rise here. Removals required
by this perfecting process, always
ill-understood, threaten the
well-being of those on whom a
change in their condition is
thus forced. What rendered Rabourdin
really great was that he was
able to restrain the enthusiasm
that possesses all reformers,
and to patiently seek out a slow
evolving medium for all changes
so as to avoid shocks, leaving
time and experience to prove
the excellence of each reform.
The grandeur of the result anticipated
might make us doubt its possibility
if we lose sight of this essential
point in our rapid analysis of
his system. It is, therefore,
not unimportant to show through
his self-communings, however
incomplete they might be, the
point of view from which he looked
at the administrative horizon.
This tale, which is evolved from
the very heart of the Civil Service,
may also serve to show some of
the evils of our present social
customs.
Xavier Rabourdin, deeply impressed
by the trials and poverty which
he witnessed in the lives of
the government clerks, endeavored
to ascertain the cause of their
growing deterioration. He found
it in those petty partial revolutions,
the eddies, as it were, of the
storm of 1789, which the historians
of great social movements neglect
to inquire into, although as
a matter of fact it is they which
have made our manners and customs
what they are now.
Formerly, under
the monarchy, the bureaucratic
armies did not
exist. The clerks, few in number,
were under the orders of a prime
minister who communicated with
the sovereign; thus they directly
served the king. The superiors
of these zealous servants were
simply called head- clerks. In
those branches of administration
which the king did not himself
direct, such for instance as
the "fermes" (the public domains
throughout the country on which
a revenue was levied), the clerks
were to their superior what the
clerks of a business-house are
to their employer; they learned
a science which would one day
advance them to prosperity. Thus,
all points of the circumference
were fastened to the centre and
derived their life from it. The
result was devotion and confidence.
Since 1789 the State, call it
the Nation if you like, has replaced
the sovereign. Instead of looking
directly to the chief magistrate
of this nation, the clerks have
become, in spite of our fine
patriotic ideas, the subsidiaries
of the government; their superiors
are blown about by the winds
of a power called "the administration," and
do not know from day to day where
they may be on the morrow. As
the routine of public business
must go on, a certain number
of indispensable clerks are kept
in their places, though they
hold these places on sufferance,
anxious as they are to retain
them. Bureaucracy, a gigantic
power set in motion by dwarfs,
was generated in this way. Though
Napoleon, by subordinating all
things and all men to his will,
retarded for a time the influence
of bureaucracy (that ponderous
curtain hung between the service
to be done and the man who orders
it), it was permanently organized
under the constitutional government,
which was, inevitably, the friend
of all mediocrities, the lover
of authentic documents and accounts,
and as meddlesome as an old tradeswoman.
Delighted to see the various
ministers constantly struggling
against the four hundred petty
minds of the Elected of the Chamber,
with their ten or a dozen ambitious
and dishonest leaders, the Civil
Service officials hastened to
make themselves essential to
the warfare by adding their quota
of assistance under the form
of written action; they created
a power of inertia and named
it "Report." Let us explain the
Report.
When the kings
of France took to themselves
ministers, which
first happened under Louis XV.,
they made them render reports
on all important questions, instead
of holding, as formerly, grand
councils of state with the nobles.
Under the constitutional government,
the ministers of the various
departments were insensibly led
by their bureaus to imitate this
practice of kings. Their time
being taken up in defending themselves
before the two Chambers and the
court, they let themselves be
guided by the leading-strings
of the Report. Nothing important
was ever brought before the government
that a minister did not say,
even when the case was urgent, "I
have called for a report." The
Report thus became, both as to
the matter concerned and for
the minister himself, the same
as a report to the Chamber of
Deputies on a question of laws,--namely,
a disquisition in which the reasons
for and against are stated with
more or less partiality. No real
result is attained; the minister,
like the Chamber, is fully as
well prepared before as after
the report is rendered. A determination,
in whatever matter, is reached
in an instant. Do what we will,
the moment comes when the decision
must be made. The greater the
array of reasons for and against,
the less sound will be the judgment.
The finest things of which France
can boast have been accomplished
without reports and where decisions
were prompt and spontaneous.
The dominant law of a statesman
is to apply precise formula to
all cases, after the manner of
judges and physicians.
Rabourdin,
who said to himself: "A
minister should have decision,
should know public affairs, and
direct their course," saw "Report" rampant
throughout France, from the colonel
to the marshal, from the commissary
of police to the king, from the
prefects to the ministers of
state, from the Chamber to the
courts. After 1818 everything
was discussed, compared, and
weighed, either in speech or
writing; public business took
a literary form. France went
to ruin in spite of this array
of documents; dissertations stood
in place of action; a million
of reports were written every
year; bureaucracy was enthroned!
Records, statistics, documents,
failing which France would have
been ruined, circumlocution,
without which there could be
no advance, increased, multiplied,
and grew majestic. From that
day forth bureaucracy used to
its own profit the mistrust that
stands between receipts and expenditures;
it degraded the administration
for the benefit of the administrators;
in short, it spun those lilliputian
threads which have chained France
to Parisian centralization,--as
if from 1500 to 1800 France had
undertaken nothing for want of
thirty thousand government clerks!
In fastening upon public offices,
like a mistletoe on a pear-tree,
these officials indemnified themselves
amply, and in the following manner.
The ministers, compelled to
obey the princes or the Chambers
who impose upon them the distribution
of the public moneys, and forced
to retain the workers in office,
proceeded to diminish salaries
and increase the number of those
workers, thinking that if more
persons were employed by government
the stronger the government would
be. And yet the contrary law
is an axiom written on the universe;
there is no vigor except where
there are few active principles.
Events proved in July, 1830,
the error of the materialism
of the Restoration. To plant
a government in the hearts of
a nation it is necessary to bind
INTERESTS to it, not MEN. The
government-clerks being led to
detest the administrations which
lessened both their salaries
and their importance, treated
them as a courtesan treats an
aged lover, and gave them mere
work for money; a state of things
which would have seemed as intolerable
to the administration as to the
clerks, had the two parties dared
to feel each other's pulse, or
had the higher salaries not succeeded
in stifling the voices of the
lower. Thus wholly and solely
occupied in retaining his place,
drawing his pay, and securing
his pension, the government official
thought everything permissible
that conduced to these results.
This state of things led to servility
on the part of the clerks and
to endless intrigues within the
various departments, where the
humbler clerks struggled vainly
against degenerate members of
the aristocracy, who sought positions
in the government bureaus for
their ruined sons.
Superior men could scarcely
bring themselves to tread these
tortuous ways, to stoop, to cringe,
and creep through the mire of
these cloacas, where the presence
of a fine mind only alarmed the
other denizens. The ambitious
man of genius grows old in obtaining
his triple crown; he does not
follow in the steps of Sixtus
the Fifth merely to become head
of a bureau. No one comes or
stays in the government offices
but idlers, incapables, or fools.
Thus the mediocrity of French
administration has slowly come
about. Bureaucracy, made up entirely
of petty minds, stands as an
obstacle to the prosperity of
the nation; delays for seven
years, by its machinery, the
project of a canal which would
have stimulated the production
of a province; is afraid of everything,
prolongs procrastination, and
perpetuates the abuses which
in turn perpetuate and consolidate
itself. Bureaucracy holds all
things and the administration
itself in leading strings; it
stifles men of talent who are
bold enough to be independent
of it or to enlighten it on its
own follies. About the time of
which we write the pension list
had just been issued, and on
it Rabourdin saw the name of
an underling in office rated
for a larger sum than the old
colonels, maimed and wounded
for their country. In that fact
lies the whole history of bureaucracy.
Another evil,
brought about by modern customs,
which Rabourdin
counted among the causes of this
secret demoralization, was the
fact that there is no real subordination
in the administration in Paris;
complete equality reigns between
the head of an important division
and the humblest copying-clerk;
one is as powerful as the other
in an arena outside of which
each lords it in his own way.
Education, equally distributed
through the masses, brings the
son of a porter into a government
office to decide the fate of
some man of merit or some landed
proprietor whose door-bell his
father may have answered. The
last comer is therefore on equal
terms with the oldest veteran
in the service. A wealthy supernumerary
splashes his superior as he drives
his tilbury to Longchamps and
points with his whip to the poor
father of a family, remarking
to the pretty woman at his side, "That's
my chief." The Liberals call
this state of things Progress;
Rabourdin thought it Anarchy
at the heart of power. He saw
how it resulted in restless intrigues,
like those of a harem between
eunuchs and women and imbecile
sultans, or the petty troubles
of nuns full of underhand vexations,
or college tyrannies, or diplomatic
manoeuvrings fit to terrify an
ambassador, all put in motion
to obtain a fee or an increase
in salary; it was like the hopping
of fleas harnessed to pasteboard
cars, the spitefulness of slaves,
often visited on the minister
himself. With all this were the
really useful men, the workers,
victims of such parasites; men
sincerely devoted to their country,
who stood vigorously out from
the background of the other incapables,
yet who were often forced to
succumb through unworthy trickery.
All the higher offices were
gained through parliamentary
influence, royalty had nothing
to do now with them, and the
subordinate clerks became, after
a time, merely the running-gear
of the machine; the most important
considerations with them being
to keep the wheels well greased.
This fatal conviction entering
some of the best minds smothered
many statements conscientiously
written on the secret evils of
the national government; lowered
the courage of many hearts, and
corrupted sterling honesty, weary
of injustice and won to indifference
by deteriorating annoyances.
A clerk in the employ of the
Rothchilds corresponds with all
England; another, in a government
office, may communicate with
all the prefects; but where the
one learns the way to make his
fortune, the other loses time
and health and life to no avail.
An undermining evil lies here.
Certainly a nation does not seem
threatened with immediate dissolution
because an able clerk is sent
away and a middling sort of man
replaces him. Unfortunately for
the welfare of nations individual
men never seem essential to their
existence. But in the long run
when the belittling process is
fully carried out nations will
disappear. Every one who seeks
instruction on this point can
look at Venice, Madrid, Amsterdam,
Stockholm, Rome; all places which
were formerly resplendent with
mighty powers and are now destroyed
by the infiltrating littleness
which gradually attained the
highest eminence. When the day
of struggle came, all was found
rotten, the State succumbed to
a weak attack. To worship the
fool who succeeds, and not to
grieve over the fall of an able
man is the result of our melancholy
education, of our manners and
customs which drive men of intellect
into disgust, and genius to despair.
What a difficult undertaking
is the rehabilitation of the
Civil Service while the liberal
cries aloud in his newspapers
that the salaries of clerks are
a standing theft, calls the items
of the budget a cluster of leeches,
and every year demands why the
nation should be saddled with
a thousand millions of taxes.
In Monsieur Rabourdin's eyes
the clerk in relation to the
budget was very much what the
gambler is to the game; that
which he wins he puts back again.
All remuneration implies something
furnished. To pay a man a thousand
francs a year and demand his
whole time was surely to organize
theft and poverty. A galley-slave
costs nearly as much, and does
less. But to expect a man whom
the State remunerated with twelve
thousand francs a year to devote
himself to his country was a
profitable contract for both
sides, fit to allure all capacities.
These reflections had led Rabourdin
to desire the recasting of the
clerical official staff. To employ
fewer man, to double or treble
salaries, and do away with pensions,
to choose only young clerks (as
did Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu,
and Ximenes), but to keep them
long and train them for the higher
offices and greatest honors,
these were the chief features
of a reform which if carried
out would be as beneficial to
the State as to the clerks themselves.
It is difficult to recount in
detail, chapter by chapter, a
plan which embraced the whole
budget and continued down through
the minutest details of administration
in order to keep the whole synthetical;
but perhaps a slight sketch of
the principal reforms will suffice
for those who understand such
matters, as well as for those
who are wholly ignorant of the
administrative system. Though
the historian's position is rather
hazardous in reproducing a plan
which may be thought the politics
of a chimney-corner, it is, nevertheless,
necessary to sketch it so as
to explain the author of it by
his own work. Were the recital
of his efforts to be omitted,
the reader would not believe
the narrator's word if he merely
declared the talent and the courage
of this official.
Rabourdin's
plan divided the government
into three ministries,
or departments. He thought that
if the France of former days
possessed brains strong enough
to comprehend in one system both
foreign and domestic affairs,
the France of to-day was not
likely to be without its Mazarin,
its Suger, its Sully, its de
Choiseul, or its Colbert to direct
even vast administrative departments.
Besides, constitutionally speaking,
three ministries will agree better
than seven; and, in the restricted
number there is less chance for
mistaken choice; moreover, it
might be that the kingdom would
some day escape from those perpetual
ministerial oscillations which
interfered with all plans of
foreign policy and prevented
all ameliorations of home rule.
In Austria, where many diverse
united nations present so many
conflicting interests to be conciliated
and carried forward under one
crown, two statesmen alone bear
the burden of public affairs
and are not overwhelmed by it.
Was France less prolific of political
capacities than Germany? The
rather silly game of what are
called "constitutional institutions" carried
beyond bounds has ended, as everybody
knows, in requiring a great many
offices to satisfy the multifarious
ambition of the middle classes.
It seemed to Rabourdin, in the
first place, natural to unite
the ministry of war with the
ministry of the navy. To his
thinking the navy was one of
the current expenses of the war
department, like the artillery,
cavalry, infantry, and commissariat.
Surely it was an absurdity to
give separate administrations
to admirals and marshals when
both were employed to one end,
namely, the defense of the nation,
the overthrow of an enemy, and
the security of the national
possessions. The ministry of
the interior ought in like manner
to combine the departments of
commerce, police, and finances,
or it belied its own name. To
the ministry of foreign affairs
belonged the administration of
justice, the household of the
king, and all that concerned
arts, sciences, and belles lettres.
All patronage ought to flow directly
from the sovereign. Such ministries
necessitated the supremacy of
a council. Each required the
work of two hundred officials,
and no more, in its central administration
offices, where Rabourdin proposed
that they should live, as in
former days under the monarchy.
Taking the sum of twelve thousand
francs a year for each official
as an average, he estimated seven
millions as the cost of the whole
body of such officials, which
actually stood at twenty in the
budget.
By thus reducing the ministers
to three heads he suppressed
departments which had come to
be useless, together with the
enormous costs of their maintenance
in Paris. He proved that an arrondissement
could be managed by ten men;
a prefecture by a dozen at the
most; which reduced the entire
civil service force throughout
France to five thousand men,
exclusive of the departments
of war and justice. Under this
plan the clerks of the court
were charged with the system
of loans, and the ministry of
the interior with that of registration
and the management of domains.
Thus Rabourdin united in one
centre all divisions that were
allied in nature. The mortgage
system, inheritance, and registration
did not pass outside of their
own sphere of action and only
required three additional clerks
in the justice courts and three
in the royal courts. The steady
application of this principle
brought Rabourdin to reforms
in the finance system. He merged
the collection of revenue into
one channel, taxing consumption
in bulk instead of taxing property.
According to his ideas, consumption
was the sole thing properly taxable
in times of peace. Land-taxes
should always be held in reserve
in case of war; for then only
could the State justly demand
sacrifices from the soil, which
was in danger; but in times of
peace it was a serious political
fault to burden it beyond a certain
limit; otherwise it could never
be depended on in great emergencies.
Thus a loan should be put on
the market when the country was
tranquil, for at such times it
could be placed at par, instead
of at fifty per cent loss as
in bad times; in war times resort
should be had to a land-tax.
"The invasion of 1814 and 1815," Rabourdin
would say to his friends, "founded
in France and practically explained
an institution which neither
Law nor Napoleon had been able
to establish,--I mean Credit."
Unfortunately, Xavier considered
the true principles of this admirable
machine of civil service very
little understood at the period
when he began his labor of reform
in 1820. His scheme levied a
toll on the consumption by means
of direct taxation and suppressed
the whole machinery of indirect
taxation. The levying of the
taxes was simplified by a single
classification of a great number
of articles. This did away with
the more harassing customs at
the gates of the cities, and
obtained the largest revenues
from the remainder, by lessening
the enormous expense of collecting
them. To lighten the burden of
taxation is not, in matters of
finance, to diminish the taxes,
but to assess them better; if
lightened, you increase the volume
of business by giving it freer
play; the individual pays less
and the State receives more.
This reform, which may seem immense,
rests on very simple machinery.
Rabourdin regarded the tax on
personal property as the most
trustworthy representative of
general consumption. Individual
fortunes are usually revealed
in France by rentals, by the
number of servants, horses, carriages,
and luxuries, the costs of which
are all to the interest of the
public treasury. Houses and what
they contain vary comparatively
but little, and are not liable
to disappear. After pointing
out the means of making a tax-
list on personal property which
should be more impartial than
the existing list, Rabourdin
assessed the sums to be brought
into the treasury by indirect
taxation as so much per cent
on each individual share. A tax
is a levy of money on things
or persons under disguises that
are more or less specious. These
disguises, excellent when the
object is to extort money, become
ridiculous in the present day,
when the class on which the taxes
weigh the heaviest knows why
the State imposes them and by
what machinery they are given
back. In fact the budget is not
a strong-box to hold what is
put into it, but a watering-pot;
the more it takes in and the
more it pours out the better
for the prosperity of the country.
Therefore, supposing there are
six millions of tax-payers in
easy circumstances (Rabourdin
proved their existence, including
the rich) is it not better to
make them pay a duty on the consumption
of wine, which would not be more
offensive than that on doors
and windows and would return
a hundred millions, rather than
harass them by taxing the thing
itself. By this system of taxation,
each individual tax-payer pays
less in reality, while the State
receives more, and consumers
profit by a vast reduction in
the price of things which the
State releases from its perpetual
and harassing interference. Rabourdin's
scheme retained a tax on the
cultivation of vineyards, so
as to protect that industry from
the too great abundance of its
own products. Then, to reach
the consumption of the poorer
tax-payers, the licences of retail
dealers were taxed according
to the population of the neighborhoods
in which they lived.
In this way,
the State would receive without
cost or vexatious
hindrances an enormous revenue
under three forms; namely, a
duty on wine, on the cultivation
of vineyards, and on licenses,
where now an irritating array
of taxes existed as a burden
on itself and its officials.
Taxation was thus imposed upon
the rich without overburdening
the poor. To give another example.
Suppose a share assessed to each
person of one or two francs for
the consumption of salt and you
obtain ten or a dozen millions;
the modern "gabelle" disappears,
the poor breathe freer, agriculture
is relieved, the State receives
as much, and no tax-payer complains.
All persons, whether they belong
to the industrial classes or
to the capitalists, will see
at once the benefits of a tax
so assessed when they discover
how commerce increases, and life
is ameliorated in the country
districts. In short, the State
will see from year to year the
number of her well- to-do tax-payers
increasing. By doing away with
the machinery of indirect taxation,
which is very costly (a State,
as it were, within a State),
both the public finances and
the individual tax-payer are
greatly benefited, not to speak
of the saving in costs of collecting.
The whole subject is indeed
less a question of finance than
a question of government. The
State should possess nothing
of its own, neither forests,
nor mines, nor public works.
That it should be the owner of
domains was, in Rabourdin's opinion,
an administrative contradiction.
The State cannot turn its possessions
to profit and it deprives itself
of taxes; it thus loses two forms
of production. As to the manufactories
of the government, they are just
as unreasonable in the sphere
of industry. The State obtains
products at a higher cost than
those of commerce, produces them
more slowly, and loses its tax
upon the industry, the maintenance
of which it, in turn, reduces.
Can it be thought a proper method
of governing a country to manufacture
instead of promoting manufactures?
to possess property instead of
creating more possessions and
more diverse ones? In Rabourdin's
system the State exacted no money
security; he allowed only mortgage
securities; and for this reason:
Either the State holds the security
in specie, and that embarrasses
business and the movement of
money; or it invests it at a
higher rate than the State itself
pays, and that is a contemptible
robbery; or else it loses on
the transaction, and that is
folly; moreover, if it is obliged
at any time to dispose of a mass
of these securities it gives
rises in certain cases to terrible
bankruptcy.
The territorial tax did not
entirely disappear in Rabourdin's
plan,-- he kept a minute portion
of it as a point of departure
in case of war; but the productions
of the soil were freed, and industry,
finding raw material at a low
price, could compete with foreign
nations without the deceptive
help of customs. The rich carried
on the administration of the
provinces without compensation
except that of receiving a peerage
under certain conditions. Magistrates,
learned bodies, officers of the
lower grades found their services
honorably rewarded; no man employed
by the government failed to obtain
great consideration through the
value and extent of his labors
and the excellence of his salary;
every one was able to provide
for his own future and France
was delivered from the cancer
of pensions. As a result Rabourdin's
scheme exhibited only seven hundred
millions of expenditures and
twelve hundred millions of receipts.
A saving of five hundred millions
annually had far more virtue
than the accumulation of a sinking
fund whose dangers were plainly
to be seen. In that fund the
State, according to Rabourdin,
became a stockholder, just as
it persisted in being a land-holder
and a manufacturer. To bring
about these reforms without too
roughly jarring the existing
state of things or incurring
a Saint-Bartholomew of clerks,
Rabourdin considered that an
evolution of twenty years would
be required.
Such were the thoughts maturing
in Rabourdin's mind ever since
his promised place had been given
to Monsieur de la Billardiere,
a man of sheer incapacity. This
plan, so vast apparently yet
so simple in point of fact, which
did away with so many large staffs
and so many little offices all
equally useless, required for
its presentation to the public
mind close calculations, precise
statistics, and self-evident
proof. Rabourdin had long studied
the budget under its double-aspect
of ways and means and of expenditure.
Many a night he had lain awake
unknown to his wife. But so far
he had only dared to conceive
the plan and fit it prospectively
to the administrative skeleton;
all of which counted for nothing,--he
must gain the ear of a minister
capable of appreciating his ideas.
Rabourdin's success depended
on the tranquil condition of
political affairs, which up to
this time were still unsettled.
He had not considered the government
as permanently secure until three
hundred deputies at least had
the courage to form a compact
majority systematically ministerial.
An administration founded on
that basis had come into power
since Rabourdin had finished
his elaborate plan. At this time
the luxury of peace under the
Bourbons had eclipsed the warlike
luxury of the days when France
shone like a vast encampment,
prodigal and magnificent because
it was victorious. After the
Spanish campaign, the administration
seemed to enter upon an era of
tranquillity in which some good
might be accomplished; and three
months before the opening of
our story a new reign had begun
without any apparent opposition;
for the liberalism of the Left
had welcomed Charles X. with
as much enthusiasm as the Right.
Even clear- sighted and suspicious
persons were misled. The moment
seemed propitious for Rabourdin.
What could better conduce to
the stability of the government
than to propose and carry through
a reform whose beneficial results
were to be so vast?
Never had Rabourdin seemed
so anxious and preoccupied as
he now did in the mornings as
he walked from his house to the
ministry, or at half- past four
in the afternoon, when he returned.
Madame Rabourdin, on her part,
disconsolate over her wasted
life, weary of secretly working
to obtain a few luxuries of dress,
never appeared so bitterly discontented
as now; but, like any wife who
is really attached to her husband,
she considered it unworthy of
a superior woman to condescend
to the shameful devices by which
the wives of some officials eke
out the insufficiency of their
husband's salary. This feeling
made her refuse all intercourse
with Madame Colleville, then
very intimate with Francois Keller,
whose parties eclipsed those
of the rue Duphot. Nevertheless,
she mistook the quietude of the
political thinker and the preoccupation
of the intrepid worker for the
apathetic torpor of an official
broken down by the dulness of
routine, vanquished by that most
hateful of all miseries, the
mediocrity that simply earns
a living; and she groaned at
being married to a man without
energy.
Thus it was
that about this period in their
lives she resolved
to take the making of her husband's
fortune on herself; to thrust
him at any cost into a higher
sphere, and to hide from him
the secret springs of her machinations.
She carried into all her plans
the independence of ideas which
characterized her, and was proud
to think that she could rise
above other women by sharing
none of their petty prejudices
and by keeping herself untrammelled
by the restraints which society
imposes. In her anger she resolved
to fight fools with their own
weapons, and to make herself
a fool if need be. She saw things
coming to a crisis. The time
was favorable. Monsieur de la
Billardiere, attacked by a dangerous
illness, was likely to die in
a few days. If Rabourdin succeeded
him, his talents (for Celestine
did vouchsafe him an administrative
gift) would be so thoroughly
appreciated that the office of
Master of petitions, formerly
promised, would now be given
to him; she fancied she saw him
the king's commissioner, presenting
bills to the Chambers and defending
them; then indeed she could help
him; she would even be, if needful,
his secretary; she would sit
up all night to do the work!
All this to drive in the Bois
in a pretty carriage, to equal
Madame Delphine de Nucingen,
to raise her salon to the level
of Madame Colleville's, to be
invited to the great ministerial
solemnities, to win listeners
and make them talk of her as "Madame
Rabourdin DE something or other" (she
had not yet determined on the
estate), just as they did of
Madame Firmiani, Madame d'Espard,
Madame d'Aiglemont, Madame de
Carigliano, and thus efface forever
the odious name of Rabourdin.
These secret
schemes brought some changes
into the household.
Madame Rabourdin began to walk
with a firm step in the path
of DEBT. She set up a manservant,
and put him in livery of brown
cloth with red pipins, she renewed
parts of her furniture, hung
new papers on the walls, adorned
her salon with plants and flowers,
always fresh, and crowded it
with knick-knacks that were then
in vogue; then she, who had always
shown scruples as to her personal
expenses, did not hesitate to
put her dress in keeping with
the rank to which she aspired,
the profits of which were discounted
in several of the shops where
she equipped herself for war.
To make her "Wednesdays" fashionable
she gave a dinner on Fridays,
the guests being expected to
pay their return visit and take
a cup of tea on the following
Wednesday. She chose her guests
cleverly among influential deputies
or other persons of note who,
sooner or later, might advance
her interests. In short, she
gathered an agreeable and befitting
circle about her. People amused
themselves at her house; they
said so at least, which is quite
enough to attract society in
Paris. Rabourdin was so absorbed
in completing his great and serious
work that he took no notice of
the sudden reappearance of luxury
in the bosom of his family.
Thus the wife and the husband
were besieging the same fortress,
working on parallel lines, but
without each other's knowledge.
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