Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
fine imagination; and do not throw your salad out of window, nor shove
your cat off your knee, on hearing it said that Shakespeare has a
finer, or that a minister is of opinion that you know more of music
than of state. My friend! the quarrels of ingenious men are generally
far less reasonable and just, less placable and moderate, than those
of the stupid and ignorant. We ought to blush at this: and we should
blush yet more deeply if we bring them in as parties to our
differences. Let us conquer by kindness; which we cannot do easily or
well without communication.
_Rousseau._ The minister would expel me from his antechamber, and
order his valets to buffet me, if I offered him any proposal for the
advantage of mankind.
_Malesherbes._ Call to him, then, from this room, where the valets are
civiler. Nature has given you a speaking-trumpet, which neither storm
can drown nor enemy can silence. If you esteem him, instruct him; if
you despise him, do the same. Surely, you who have much benevolence
would not despise any one willingly or unnecessarily. Contempt is for
the incorrigible: now, where upon earth is he whom your genius, if
rightly and temperately exerted, would not influence and correct?
I never was more flattered or honoured than by your patience in
listening to me. Consider me as an old woman who sits by the bedside
in your infirmity, who brings you no savoury viand, no exotic fruit,
but a basin of whey or a basket of strawberries from your native
hills; assures you that what oppressed you was a dream, occasioned by
the wrong position in which you lay; opens the window, gives you fresh
air, and entreats you to recollect the features of Nature, and to
observe (which no man ever did so accurately) their beauty. In your
politics you cut down a forest to make a toothpick, and cannot make
even that out of it! Do not let us in jurisprudence be like critics in
the classics, and change whatever can be changed, right or wrong. No
statesman will take your advice. Supposing that any one is liberal in
his sentiments and clear-sighted in his views, nevertheless love of
power is jealous, and he would rejoice to see you fleeing from
persecution or turning to meet it. The very men whom you would benefit
will treat you worse. As the ministers of kings wish their masters to
possess absolute power that the exercise of it may be delegated to
them, which it naturally is from the violence and sloth alternate with
despots as with wild beasts, and that they may apprehend no check or
control from those who discover their misdemeanours, in like manner
the people places more trust in favour than in fortune, and hopes to
obtain by subserviency what it never might by election or by chance.
Else in free governments, so some are called (for names once given are
the last things lost), all minor offices and employments would be
assigned by ballot. Each province or canton would present a list
annually of such persons in it as are worthy to occupy the local
administrations.
To avoid any allusion to the country in which we live, let us take
England for example. Is it not absurd, iniquitous, and revolting, that
the minister of a church in Yorkshire should be appointed by a lawyer
in London, who never knew him, never saw him, never heard from a
single one of the parishioners a recommendation of any kind? Is it not
more reasonable that a justice of the peace should be chosen by those
who have always been witnesses of his integrity?
_Rousseau._ The king should appoint his ministers, and should invest
them with power and splendour; but those ministers should not appoint
to any civil or religious place of trust or profit which the community
could manifestly fill better. The greater part of offices and
dignities should be conferred for a short and stated time, that all
might hope to attain and strive to deserve them. Embassies in
particular should never exceed one year in Europe, nor consulates two.
To the latter office I assign this duration as the more difficult to
fulfil properly, from requiring a knowledge of trade, although a
slight one, and because those who possess any such knowledge are
inclined for the greater part to turn it to their own account, which a
consul ought by no means to do. Frequent election of representatives
and of civil officers in the subordinate employments would remove most
causes of discontent in the people, and of instability in kingly
power. Here is a lottery in which every one is sure of a prize, if not
for himself, at least for somebody in his family or among his friends;
and the ticket would be fairly paid for out of the taxes.
_Malesherbes._ So it appears to me. What other system can present so
obviously to the great mass of the people the two principal piers and
buttresses of government, tangible interest and reasonable hope? No
danger of any kind can arise from it, no antipathies, no divisions, no
imposture of demagogues, no caprice of despots. On the contrary, many
and great advantages in places which at the first survey do not appear
to border on it. At present, the best of the English juridical
institutions, that of justices of the peace, is viewed with diffidence
and distrust. Elected as they would be, and increased in number, the
whole judicature, civil and criminal, might be confided to them, and
their labours be not only not aggravated but diminished. Suppose them
in four divisions to meet at four places in every county once in
twenty days, and to possess the power of imposing a fine not exceeding
two hundred francs on every cause implying oppression, and one not
exceeding fifty on such as they should unanimously declare frivolous.
_Rousseau._ Few would become attorneys, and those from among the
indigent.
_Malesherbes._ Almost the greatest evil that exists in the world,
moral or physical, would be removed. A second appeal might be made in
the following session; a third could only come before Parliament, and
this alone by means of attorneys, the number of whom altogether would
not exceed the number of coroners; for in England there are as many
who cut their own throats as who would cut their own purses.
_Rousseau._ The famous _trial by jury_ would cease: this would disgust
the English.
_Malesherbes._ The number of justices would be much augmented: nearly
all those who now are jurymen would enjoy this rank and dignity, and
would be flattered by sitting on the same bench with the first
gentlemen of the land.
_Rousseau._ What number would sit?
_Malesherbes._ Three or five in the first instance; five or seven in
the second--as the number of causes should permit.
_Rousseau._ The laws of England are extremely intricate and perplexed:
such men would be puzzled.
_Malesherbes._ Such men having no interest in the perplexity, but on
the contrary an interest in unravelling it, would see such laws
corrected. Intricate as they are, questions on those which are the
most so are usually referred by the judges themselves to private
arbitration; of which my plan, I conceive, has all the advantages,
united to those of open and free discussion among men of unperverted
sense, and unbiased by professional hopes and interests. The different
courts of law in England cost about seventy millions of francs
annually. On my system, the justices or judges would receive
five-and-twenty francs daily; as the _special jurymen_ do now, without
any sense of shame or impropriety, however rich they may be: such
being the established practice.
_Rousseau._ Seventy millions! seventy millions!
_Malesherbes._ There are attorneys and conveyancers in London who gain
one hundred thousand francs a year, and advocates more. The
chancellor----
_Rousseau._ The Celeno of these harpies----
_Malesherbes._ Nets above one million, and is greatly more than an
archbishop in the Church, scattering preferment in Cumberland and
Cornwall from his bench at Westminster.
_Rousseau._ Absurdities and enormities are great in proportion to
custom or insuetude. If we had lived from childhood with a boa
constrictor, we should think it no more a monster than a canary-bird.
The sum you mentioned, of seventy millions, is incredible.
_Malesherbes._ In this estimate the expense of letters by the post,
and of journeys made by the parties, is not and cannot be included.
_Rousseau._ The whole machine of government, civil and religious,
ought never to bear upon the people with a weight so oppressive. I do
not add the national defence, which being principally naval is more
costly, nor institutions for the promotion of the arts, which in a
country like England ought to be liberal. But such an expenditure
should nearly suffice for these also, in time of peace. Religion and
law indeed should cost nothing: at present the one hangs property, the
other quarters it. I am confounded at the profusion. I doubt whether
the Romans expended so much in that year's war which dissolved the
Carthaginian empire, and left them masters of the universe. What is
certain, and what is better, it did not cost a tenth of it to colonize
Pennsylvania, in whose forests the cradle of freedom is suspended, and
where the eye of philanthropy, tired with tears and vigils, may wander
and may rest. Your system, or rather your arrangement of one already
established, pleases me. Ministers would only lose thereby that
portion of their possessions which they give away to needy relatives,
unworthy dependants, or the requisite supporters of their authority
and power.
_Malesherbes._ On this plan, no such supporters would be necessary, no
such dependants could exist, and no such relatives could be
disappointed. Beside, the conflicts of their opponents must be
periodical, weak, and irregular.
_Rousseau._ The craving for the rich carrion would be less keen; the
zeal of opposition, as usual, would be measured by the stomach,
whereon hope and overlooking have always a strong influence.
_Malesherbes._ My excellent friend, do not be offended with me for an
ingenuous and frank confession: promise me your pardon.
_Rousseau._ You need none.
_Malesherbes._ Promise it, nevertheless.
_Rousseau._ You have said nothing, done nothing, which could in any
way displease me.
_Malesherbes._ You grant me, then, a bill of indemnity for what I may
have undertaken with a good intention since we have been together?
_Rousseau._ Willingly.
_Malesherbes._ I fell into your views, I walked along with you side by
side, merely to occupy your mind, which I perceived was agitated.
In compliance with your humour, to engage your fancy, to divert it
awhile from Switzerland, by which you appear and partly on my account
to be offended, I began with reflections upon England: I raised up
another cloud in the region of them, light enough to be fantastic and
diaphanous, and to catch some little irradiation from its western
sun. Do not run after it farther; it has vanished already. Consider:
the three great nations----
_Rousseau._ Pray, which are those?
_Malesherbes._ I cannot in conscience give the palm to the Hottentots,
the Greenlanders, or the Hurons: I meant to designate those who united
to empire the most social virtue and civil freedom. Athens, Rome, and
England have received on the subject of government elaborate treatises
from their greatest men. You have reasoned more dispassionately and
profoundly on it than Plato has done, or probably than Cicero, led
away as he often is by the authority of those who are inferior to
himself: but do you excel Aristoteles in calm and patient
investigation? Or, think you, are your reading and range of thought
more extensive than Harrington's and Milton's? Yet what effect have
the political works of these marvellous men produced upon the
world?--what effect upon any one state, any one city, any one hamlet?