1787.] THE KING BECOMES INSANE. 153 day after his declaration in parliament, a gentleman at Brooks's told Mr. Fox that he had been misinformed; "I was present at that marriage.' The prince is recorded on the same day to have said to Mrs. Fitzherbert, "Only conceive, Maria, what Fox did yesterday: he went down to the House and denied that you and I were man and wife." + Mr. Fox, says lord J. Russell, "perceived how completely he had been duped. He immediately renounced the acquaintance of the prince, and did not speak to him for more than a year." The matter was hushed up; the prince's debts were paid by parliament after negotiations and squabbles which are now of little interest. Mr. Fox could not retract his declaration, without exposing the prince to the risk of losing his succession to the Crown, according to lord John Russell. His indignation at having been made the instrument of declaring a falsehood did not prevent him advocating the claims of the prince of Wales to almost uncontrolled power, in the great question of The Regency which arose in 1788. On the 24th of October, the king, having been out of health, went to the levée, "with a view of putting an end to the stories that were circulated with much industry," A violent fever ensued; and in a few days the sovereign was decidedly insane. On the 7th Mr. Grenville wrote, "I am afraid that it would be very sanguine indeed to say that there is even any hope that the king will recover both his health and his understanding." § The public were to be kept in ignorance of this alarming event. But the parliament was to meet on the 20th of November. An adjournment of a fortnight was agreed to. Meanwhile the physicians who had attended his majesty were examined on oath before the Privy Council. All agreed that the king could not attend to public affairs; three expressed confidence in his recovery. A Committee of the two Houses had also examined the medical authorities, and had reported their opinions. Mr. Fox had been travelling in Italy, but being summoned home, he appeared in his place in parliament on the 10th of December; and there declared that, "in his firm opinion, his royal highness the prince of Wales had as clear, as express a right to assume the reins of government, and exercise the power of sovereignty, during the continuance of the illness and incapacity with which it had pleased God to affect his majesty, as in the case of his majesty having undergone a natural and perfect demise." The two Houses, he said, "were alone qualified to pronounce when the prince ought to take possession of, and exercise, his right; but as short a time as possible ought to intervene between the prince of Wales assuming the sovereignty, and the present moment." || Mr. Pitt maintained that, although the claim of the prince was entitled to the most serious consideration, in the case of the interruption of the personal exercise of the royal authority, without any previous lawful provision for carrying on the government, "it belonged to the other branches of the legislature, on the part of the nation at large, to provide, according to their discretion, for the temporary exercise of the royal authority, in the name, and on the behalf of the sovereign, in such manner as they should think requisite; and that, unless * Lord John Russell, "Life of Fox," p. 186. W. W. Grenville, "Court of George III.," vol. i. p. 431. § Ibid, p. 435. 154 PARLIAMENTARY CONFLICT ON THE REGENCY BILL. [1788. by their decision, the prince of Wales had no more right-speaking of strict right-to assume the government, than any other individual in the country." In this first debate an amount of passion was displayed on the part of Burke, which greatly detracted from his reputation as a sound authority upon constitutional questions. Pitt had said that to assert a right in the prince of Wales, independent of the decision of the two Houses of Parliament, was treason to the constitution. Burke exclaimed, "where was the freedom of debate, where was the privilege of parliament, if the rights of the prince of Wales could not be spoken of in that House, without their being liable to be charged with treason by one of the prince's competitors?" Pitt quietly asked whether, "at that period of our history when the constitution was settled on that foundation on which it now existed, when Mr. Somers and other great men declared that no person had a right to the crown independent of the consent of the two Houses, would it have been thought either fair or decent for any member of either House to have pronounced Mr. Somers a personal competitor of William the Third ?" The question of abstract right became merged in the more practical question of what powers should be confided to the prince of Wales as Regent. The views of Mr. Fox on this point were extreme. On the 15th of December he wrote to a friend in 'confidence, " I am afraid they will get up some cry against the prince for grasping, as they call it, at too much power; but I am sure I cannot in conscience advise him to give up anything that is really necessary to his government; or, indeed, to claim anything else as Regent but the full power of a king, to which he is certainly entitled."* Mr. Pitt, on the other hand, brought forward propositions to prohibit the Regent from creating peers; from disposing of the king's real or personal property; and from granting offices except during pleasure; and that the queen should have the custody of his majesty's person. There was a doubt whether the Prince would not refuse the Regency, under these restrictions. But that imprudence was not added to the other grave errors of his friends. Burke had shocked the loyalty of all men, by saying that the king had been hurled from the throne by the decree of the Almighty. Sheridan maintained that the prince had shown great moderation in not at once assuming the title and powers of Regent, and thus disgusted those who possessed any knowledge of the principles of the English constitution. There was such an evident avidity to seize upon power in the prince and his friends-there was such a distrust of his character, and such a dread of beholding a court polluted with the abominations of gaming and riot-that the national sympathy was almost wholly with Pitt, who laboured all along in the resolution that if his sovereign should be restored, he should not find everything changed. He knew that his own chances of power under the Regency were forfeited by the course he had adopted. He would "take his blue bag, and return to the bar."+ Fox appears to have acted on the conviction that the chance of the king's recovery was very small indeed. The Regency Bill had passed the Commons on the 12th of February. But in the middle of the month it was known that a great amendment had taken place in the king's condition. On the 23rd, Mr. "Correspondence of Fox," vol. ii. p. 300. 1788.] THE KING'S RECOVERY. 155 Pitt received a letter, "written in his majesty's own hand, couched in the warmest terms, thanking him for his unshaken attachment to his interests, and desiring to see him the next day." On the 25th, the issue of bulletins by the royal physicians was discontinued. On the 10th of March, the commissioners who had been appointed by former letters patent to open the parliament, by another commission declared farther causes for holding the same; and proceeded to state to both Houses that his majesty, being by the blessing of Providence recovered from his indisposition, and enabled to attend to public affairs, conveyed through them his warmest acknowledgments for the additional proofs they had given of affectionate attachment to his person. The other subjects of a royal speech on opening parliament were then detailed. Pitt had won his second great victory. In 1784, against odds almost incalculable, he had defeated the Coalition with almost the unanimous support of the people. He had employed his unassailable tenure of power in carrying forward the resources of national prosperity by a series of measures conceived, not in the spirit of party, but with a large comprehension of what was essential to the public good. Another great trial came. He had to conduct another conflict, full of danger and difficulty, in which, fighting for his sovereign, he had in the same manner the support of the nation. Major Cartwright, so well known for his subsequent endeavours to promote a Reform in Parliament, wrote to Wilberforce: "I very much fear that the king's present derangement is likely to produce other derangements not for the public benefit. I hope we are not to be sold to the Coalition faction." + When the battle was over, George the Third wrote to his persevering minister that "his constant attachment to my interest, and that of the public, which are inseparable, must ever place him in the most advantageous light." On the 23rd of April, a public thanksgiving was appointed for the king's recovery. His majesty went to St. Paul's, accompanied by both Houses of Parliament, to return his own thanksgivings. The day was observed throughout the kingdom. Illuminations were never so general; joy was never so heartfelt. The minister, still only in his twenty-ninth year, had reached the pinnacle of power and popularity. Grenville, in "Court of George III.," vol. ii., p. 125, + "Life of Wilberforce," vol. i. p. 100. Rose "Diaries, &c.," p. 97. Symptoms of great changes in France-Constant financial difficulties-General view of the French social system-Expectations of a Revolution-The Parlement of Paris-Meeting of the States-General-The Three Orders-The Tiers État demand that all the Orders shall unite-Excitement in Paris, during this contest-Tiers État assume the title of the National Assembly-Their meeting in a Tennis Court-The Royal Sitting-Open resistance of the Tiers Etat to the king's orders-The king yields-Dismissal of NeckerDestruction of the Bastille-March to Versailles of a Parisian mob-The Royal Family, and the National Assembly, removed to Paris. On the 11th of July, 1788, the king, at the close of the Session of Parliament, said: "The general state of Europe, and the assurances which I receive from foreign powers, afford me every reason to expect that my subjects will continue to enjoy the blessings of peace." The differences with France on the subject of the United Provinces had been adjusted. On the 6th of September, Mr. Pitt exultingly wrote to the marquis of Stafford, "The state of France, whatever else it may produce, seems to promise us more than ever a considerable respite from any dangerous projects."* The "state of France" was that of a country in which the disordered condition of its finances appeared to render any new disturbances of Europe, from the ambition of the government and the restlessness of the people, something approaching to an impossibility. The "whatever else it might produce " was a vague and remote danger. Yet in September, 1788, there were symptoms of impending changes, that, with a full knowledge of the causes operating to produce them, might have suggested to the far-seeing eye of that statesmanship that looked beyond the formal relations of established governments, some real cause for disquiet. Since the peace of 1783, there had been constant and increasing deficiency of revenue in France. The area of taxation was limited by the manifold exemptions from bearing a due proportion of the public burthens, which Turgot, in 1776, had vainly endeavoured to "Diaries, &c., of George Rose," vol. i. p. 85. 1776-1787.] CONSTANT FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. 157 abolish. He was dismissed, as the result of his attempts to impose taxes upon the noblesse and the clergy. Necker is summoned to fill the great post of Controller-general of Finance. He carries France through the American war by various temporary expedients; but there is still a deficit. He proposes some solid measures, and is dismissed in May, 1781. The war comes to an end. Englishmen flock to Paris in 1782, and there, wondrous disclosure! are "struck with surprise at the freedom of conversation on general liberty, even within the walls of the king's palace." * Thus was George Rose impressed. He writes in his Diary-" On a Sunday morning, while we were waiting in an outer room to see the king pass in state to the chapel of Versailles, where several of the great officers were, there was a discussion almost as free as I have heard in the House of Commons, in which Monsieur Chauvelin was the loudest, who was in some employment about the person of the king, for he dropped on his knee, and gave his majesty a cambric handkerchief as he passed through the room." Pitt, accompanied by Wilberforce and another friend, went to France in 1783. He inquired particularly into the political institutions of the French, and in a conversation with Abbé de Lageard, “a man of family and fortune," he said to him, "You have not political liberty, but for civil liberty you have more than you believe you have."† There were things below the surface that Pitt did not see. Wilberforce records of Pitt, that "it was the singular position occupied by La Fayette which most of all attracted his attention: he seemed to be the representative of the democracy in the very presence of the monarch; the tribune intruding with his veto within the chamber of the patrician order." Theoretical democracy was in fashion amongst the patrician order. They had been talking about abstract rights, and the perfectibility of society, in their Parisian salons, without a thought of the hopeless condition of the miserable peasantry that were ground into the most abject poverty by their seignorial rights. They had no public duties to fulfil; they were utterly isolated from the millions of whom they ought to have been the friends and protectors. The aristocracy received the doctrines of the political philosophers as if they were mere speculative opinions that would have no practical effects, and might be advocated as an indulgence of elegant sentiment which manifested their superiority to selfish prejudices. "The nobles shared as a pleasant pastime in these discussions, and quietly enjoyed their immunities and privileges whilst they serenely discussed the absurdity of all established customs. Not the barest notion of a violent revolution ever entered into the minds of the generation which witnessed it."§ We need feel no surprise that the sagacious English minister felt no fear of the gathering clouds which foreboded a storm. Other Controllers of Finance succeeded Necker, with indifferent success. In 1783, Calonne took the onerous post. He got on for three years by loan upon loan, the court squandering without stint; the people excited by scandalous stories against the queen, with little foundation; a general ferment in all political circles. Calonne can do no more with the stock-jobbers, and he resolves upon a convocation of Notables, influential men from all districts of France, to devise new |