Such seems to be the education and government appointed for man by the voluntatem Dei in rebus revelatum, and the education, therefore, which the man of science will accept and carry out.But the men of the Ancien Regime--in as far as it was a Regime at all--tried to be wiser than the Almighty.Why not? They were not the first, nor will be the last, by many who have made the same attempt.So this Council of State settled arbitrarily, not only taxes, and militia, and roads, but anything and everything.Its members meddled, with their whole hearts and minds.They tried to teach agriculture by schools and pamphlets and prizes; they sent out plans for every public work.A town could not establish an octroi, levy a rate, mortgage, sell, sue, farm, or administer their property, without an order in council.The Government ordered public rejoicings, saw to the firing of salutes, and illuminating of houses--in one case mentioned by M.de Tocqueville, they fined a member of the burgher guard for absenting himself from a Te Deum.All self-government was gone.A country parish was, says Turgot, nothing but "an assemblage of cabins, and of inhabitants as passive as the cabins they dwelt in." Without an order of council, the parish could not mend the steeple after a storm, or repair the parsonage gable.If they grumbled at the intendant, he threw some of the chief persons into prison, and made the parish pay the expenses of the horse patrol, which formed the arbitrary police of France.Everywhere was meddling.There were reports on statistics--circumstantial, inaccurate, and useless--as statistics are too often wont to be.
Sometimes, when the people were starving, the Government sent down charitable donations to certain parishes, on condition that the inhabitants should raise a sum on their part.When the sum offered was sufficient, the Comptroller-General wrote on the margin, when he returned the report to the intendant, "Good--express satisfaction."If it was more than sufficient, he wrote, "Good--express satisfaction and sensibility." There is nothing new under the sun.