garding taxation,
elections, roads, public works and charities, passes over into the hands
of the intendant or of the sub-delegate, under the supreme direction of
the comptroller-general or of the king's council.[1329] Civil servants,
men "of the robe and the quill," colorless commoners, perform the
administrative work; there is no way to prevent it. Even with the king's
delegates, a provincial governor, were he hereditary, a prince of the
blood, like the Condes in Burgundy, must efface himself before the
intendant; he holds no effective office; his public duties consist of
showing off and providing entertainment. Besides he would badly perform
any others. The administrative machine, with its thousands of hard,
creaking and dirty wheels, as Richelieu and Louis XIV, fashioned it,
can work only in the hands of workmen who may be dismissed at any time
therefore unscrupulous and prompt to give way to the judgment of the
State. It is impossible to allow oneself to get mixed up with rogues of
that description. He accordingly abstains, and abandons public affairs
to them. Unemployed, bored, what could he now do on his domain, where he
no longer reigns, and where dullness overpowers him? He betakes himself
to the city, and especially to the court. Moreover, only here can he
pursue a career; to be successful he has to become a courtier. It is the
will of the king, one must frequent his apartments to obtain his favors;
otherwise, on the first application for them the answer will be, "Who is
he? He is a man that I never see." In the king's eyes there is no excuse
for absence, even should the cause is a conversion, with penitence for
a motive. In preferring God to the king, he has deserted. The ministers
write to the intendants to ascertain if the gentlemen of their province
"like to stay at home," and if they "refuse to appear and perform their
duties to the king." Imagine the grandeur of such attractions
available at the court, governments, commands, bishoprics, benefices,
court-offices, survivor-ships, pensions, credit, favors of every kind
and degree for self and family. All that a country of 25 millions men
can offer that is desirable to ambition, to vanity, to interest, is
found here collected as in a reservoir. They rush to it and draw from
it.--And the more readily because it is an agreeable place, arranged
just as they would have it, and purposely to suit the social aptitudes
of the French character. The court is a vast perm