1785
The years opening sees the return of the volunteer French troops who fought in the War of the American Independence. Although Louis XVI did not support the war, the idea appealed to many who wished to ‘win their spurs’ over the pond. Besides, when has there been a dust-up that the English and the French don’t want to beat themselves bloody?
Now while some, like the Marquis de Lafayette return to Paris to cheers of admiration, others, like a certain Vicomte Alexandre François de Beauharnais, returns to face a law-suit. The plaintiff? His wife, Martinique-born Marie Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. The charge? Alexandre and Rose have been married since 1779. But despite having both been born on the island, the Vicomte and Vicomtesse are different people. Alexandre at the time of his marriage was a worldly, dashing young cavalry officer, with a good education and a mistress ten years older than he (who also just happens to be a) Rose’s cousin; and b) married), while Rose was a plump, barely literate girl from the provinces, who doesn’t seem to have learned anything in her four years of being educated at a convent in Fort Royal, when married to a man originally intended for her sister, Marie Françoise.
However, six weeks after meeting her husband to be, Alexandre and Rose were married. Despite Rose discovering shortly after the wedding that Alexandre’s mistress, Laure Girardin de Montgérald, was pregnant with Alexandre’s bastard (who would be born later that year), the marriage produced three children, Eugène Bernard (b.1781) and Hortense Louise (b.1783), with a miscarriage in between.
Except that Laure has convinced Alexandre that Hortense cannot possibly be his, since the little girl was born prematurely, and at the time of Hortense’s supposed conception, Alexandre was off fighting with his regiment. Rose, on the other hand, is vehemently denying any and all charges of infidelity.
Now, normally, the affairs of such marginal figures wouldn’t be of any note. Save for one not so insignificant detail. Rose’s younger sister, Marie Françoise ‘Manette’ de la Tascher de Pagerie is married to Louis François, Chevalier de Vaureal, bastard son of the Prince de Conti and his mistress, the dancer from the Paris opera, La Coraline (Marie Anne Veronèse).
Arriving at the Sorbonne from Toulouse, is seventeen year old Lazarine, Joachim Murat (b.1767) a theology student on a scholarship from that city’s university with a commendation by Toulouse’s archbishop, Étienne Loménie de Brienne. Murat is a reluctant son of the church, having originally wanted to enter the army, however, a few ear boxes from his innkeeper father, some tears from his mother and several admonitions from the parish priest in his home town of La Bastide, the boy submitted to his parents’ will.
For now, Murat will simply be serving as a priest in the archdiocese, however, greater and grander things are in store for him. Things that will bring this lowly provincial bourgeois to attention of the king of France and his Holiness themselves.
However, another French cleric, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the young Abbé Commenditaire de Saint-Denis, currently agent général du clergé de France is at the moment the cleric of the hour. While his appointment to the commendatory-abbacy is nepotistic – his uncle is the archbishop of Rheims who crowned the king and queen a decade ago – his abilities at defusing the anger of the lower clergy against a ‘don gratuit’ of 15 million livres to the king, through means of carrot-and-stick, show that he is someone who as much as what he benefits from nepotism, he works just as well under his own steam.
Talleyrand’s associations in the private sphere are also useful: since he befriends Honoré Gabriel de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau and the finance minister, Alexandre de Calonne. Calonne has been Turgot’s successor since the older man’s death in 1781.
Turgot is regarded by some as the high-water mark of French 18th century finance reform, since he took a state that was millions of livres in debt, and through prudential management of French finances, and curbing of royal expenditures, Turgot oversaw a recovery of French fiscal health.
However, Calonne, despite being no comte d’Aulnes (Turgot’s elevated title since 1778), continues with the previous minister’s reforms.
The gabelle (salt tax) and the tax on tobacco have been levelled across the board since Calonne took over, thanks to Turgot’s overhaul of the tax system. Another reform that the new minister has overseen is that of the revitalization of free trade methods, by the abolition of internal customs duties.
The king has stood by Calonne with this one, and one way of improving trade and communications through the kingdom of France and Navarre, is by improving first, and then expanding the system of roads between Paris and the provinces.
Although, it is Calonne’s most recent reform that has made Talleyrand the man of the hour: sale of French ecclesiastical property. Talleyrand has acquired a working knowledge of finances, real estate and diplomacy, particularly with regard to the church, since during the compilation of the report for the don gratuity, the young Abbé has become aware of the vast wealth that the church is sitting on.
The king is, unlike with previous financial reforms, rather hesitant to sign off on this. Louis is a man of the enlightened mold, and having read Rousseau, Diderot and several other encyclopedistes, but at the same time, he does not hold the title of ‘Most Christian’ king of France for nothing.
And until late in the year, Louis XVI dithers on the matter. Until Talleyrand, through the archbishop of Toulouse, one of the queen’s men, suggests a gradual reform, rather than an immediate one (as proposed by Calonne). Selling off of land and property currently not being used by the church, but having been willed to her by dying parishioners. And then gradually progressing from that to further land reforms.
Just before the queen’s birthday, the king signs into effect the loi pour la vente de moindre biens ecclésiastiques français (Law for the Sale of Lesser French Church Properties).
