(Gazette de France, 8 December 1753. Sweden.)
The same proposal is well confirmed by the example of an emperor of China who lived in the last century, and who, during one of the great events of his reign, forbade his subjects to engage in the ordinary rejoicings consecrated by custom, whether to spare them the useless and misplaced costs, or to engage them more plausibly in effecting some durable good—more glorious for himself, more advantageous to his whole people than the frivolous and passing amusements of which no visible utility remains.
Here is another striking example I should not forget:
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“The ministry of England,” says a gazette … from the year 1754, “had a thousand guineas counted out for M. Wal, ex-ambassador of Spain in London, which is, it is said, the normal present that the state gives to foreign ministers on leaving Great Britain.”
Who doesn’t see that a thousand guineas or a thousand louis make for a more useful and reasonable present than would a jewel, designed solely for the adornment of an office?
After these great examples of political savings, would anyone dare blame that Dutch ambassador who, receiving upon his departure from a foreign court a portrait of the prince bedecked with diamonds, but finding this magnificent present quite meaningless, frankly asked what it might be worth? When he was assured that the whole thing cost forty thousand gold crowns, he said: “couldn’t I have been given a bill of exchange for a similar sum to draw on an Amsterdam banker?” This Dutch naïvete makes us laugh at first, but in examining it closely, sensible people will manifestly consider that he was right, and that a good bill for forty thousand crowns is much more serviceable than a portrait.
In following the same taste for saving, how many cutbacks, how many useful and practicable establishments of so many different kinds! What savings are possible in the dispensing of justice, in administration and in finance, since it would be easy, by simplifying the collection of taxes and other matters, to employ many fewer people in all those things than at present! This item is important enough to merit specific treatises; we have many on this subject that one may very fruitfully read.
What savings are possible in the discipline of our troops, and what advantages could be drawn from it for king and state, if we devoted ourselves as the ancients did to occupying them usefully! I will talk about it on some other occasion.
What savings are possible in the administration of the arts and commerce, by lifting the obstacles found at every turn to the transport and sale of merchandise and commodities—but especially by restoring little by little the general liberty of the crafts and trades, such as it existed in the past in France, and such as it still exists today in many neighboring states; for that reason abolishing the onerous formalities of masterships, initiations,
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notarized letters of apprenticeship, and other such practices that stop the activity of workers, often alienating them completely from useful occupations and then consigning them to miserable extremities; practices, finally, that the spirit of monopoly introduced into Europe and that are only maintained in these enlightened times by the inattentiveness of legislators. All of us have only too much aversion to arduous work; we must not increase its difficulty, nor generate occasions or pretexts for our laziness.7
Moreover, independent of the masterships, there are countless abusive and ruinous customs among the workers that ought to be abolished pitilessly: such, for example, as all rights of compagnonnage,8 all feasts of the workers’ community, all assembly fees, cameos, wax candles, feasts, and drinking parties—perpetual occasions of idleness, excess, and waste, which inevitably redound against the public, and which do not accord with national economy.
What savings would be possible, finally, in the exercise of religion, by abolishing three-quarters of our feast days, as has been done in Italy, in Austria, in the Low Countries, and elsewhere. France would gain millions every year; besides which, many expenses incurred these days in our churches would be saved. On this score, may the reader pardon a citizen animated by love of the public good for the following details.
What relief and what savings for the public if the distribution of consecrated bread were cut back!9 It is one of the most useless expenses, a nonetheless substantial expense that makes plenty of people complain aloud. It is said that certain parish officers make petty exactions from them—doubtless unknown by the police—and that since there is no settled law on it, they fleece the citizens with impunity according to how easy it is to do so. Be that as it may, it is demonstrated by an exact calculation that consecrated bread costs many millions per year in France. And yet there is no need for
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it, indeed there are regions in the realm where it is not given out at all. In a word, it carries no more benediction than the water employed in blessing it, and consequently, one could stick to the water that costs nothing, and abolish the expense of the consecrated bread as being onerous to plenty of people.
After pointing to the abolition of consecrated bread, I don’t think I need to spare most of the collection plates in use among us, especially for the location of seats. All trafficking is prohibited in the temple of the Lord; he himself proscribed it loudly, and I see nothing in the Gospel on which he spoke out more forcefully. Domus mea domus orationis est, vos autem fecistis illam speluncam latronum. Luke, xix.46.10 It seems to me that this is a lesson both for pastors and for magistrates.
Nothing more indecent than selling places in church. Our ecclesiastical gentlemen take great care to place themselves comfortably and properly, seated and kneeling; it is fitting for all the faithful to do likewise—conveniently, and without ever paying up for it. For this, there should be benches suited to the purpose, benches that would fill the nave and the sides and that would leave only simple passageways. I have seen something approaching this in a province of the realm, but much better in England and Holland, where one is seated in the church without cost, and without being interrupted by beggars, collectors, or seat renters. Here, the Protestants give us a fine example to follow, if we were reasonable enough and disinterested enough for that.
It will doubtless be asked: how to provide for ordinary expenses, given this cutback in receipts? Here is the sure and easy means: cut out a good part of these expenses completely, and moderate where possible those believed to be indispensable. What is the necessity for so many cantors and other officers in the parishes? What good are so many lanterns, so many ornaments, so many bells, &c.? If one were a bit more reasonable, would there have to be so much display, so many lamps, so much ringing to bury the dead? One could say the same about countless other onerous superfluities, which bespeak more love of loot (in some) and love of ostentation (in others) than zeal for religion and true piety.
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What’s more, it is not always possible for simple individuals to remedy such abuses. Each person knows the tyranny of custom, each person even groans under it as an individual; nonetheless, everyone bears the yoke. The man-child fears censure and the “what will they say?” and no one dares resist the torrent. Thus, it is up to government to determine once and for all, depending on differences in social condition, all funerary expenses, marriage and baptism expenses, &c. I think we could reduce them to about a third of what they cost today, to the great benefit of the public, in such a way that it would be a firm rule for all families, and it would be absolutely forbidden to individuals and priests to make or bear any expense beyond that.
Some modern political men have wisely observed that the excessive number of clergy is manifestly contrary to national opulence, which is mainly true of the regular clergy of both sexes. In fact, except for those who have a useful and recognized ministry, all the others live at the expense of the true workers, without producing anything profitable to society; they do not even contribute to their own subsistence, fruges consumere nati; Hor. bks. I. ep. ii.v.29.11 And though born for the most part into the most modest circumstances, and subject by their condition to the rigors of penitence, they find means of eluding the ancient law of work, and of leading a sweet and tranquil life without being obliged to wipe away the sweat from their faces.